Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
The fact that the Framers did not grant a qualification-setting power to Congress does not imply that they wanted to bar its exercise at the state level. One reason why the Framers decided not to let Congress prescribe the qualifications of its own Members was that incumbents could have used this power to perpetuate themselves or their ilk in office. As Madison pointed out at the Philadelphia Convention, Members of Congress would have an obvious conflict of interest if they could determine who may run against them. 2 Farrand 250; see also ante, at 793-794, n. 10. But neither the people of the States nor the state legislatures would labor under the same conflict of interest when prescribing qualifications for Members of Congress, and so the Framers would have had to use a different calculus in determining whether to deprive them of this power.
As the majority argues, democratic principles also contributed to the Framers' decision to withhold the qualification-setting power from Congress. But the majority is wrong to suggest that the same principles must also have led the Framers to deny this power to the people of the States and the state legislatures. In particular, it simply is not true that "the source of the qualification is of little moment in assessing the qualification's restrictive impact." Ante, at 820. There is a world of difference between a self-imposed constraint and a constraint imposed from above.
Congressional power over qualifications would have enabled the representatives from some States, acting collectively in the National Legislature, to prevent the people of another State from electing their preferred candidates. The John Wilkes episode in 18th-century England illustrates the problems that might result. As the majority mentions, Wilkes' district repeatedly elected him to the House of Commons, only to have a majority of the representatives of other
would have been no occasion for Nixon to extend Powell: The only point of its discussion was to explain why the question at issue in Powell was justiciable, while the question at issue in Nixon (which concerned impeachment) was not.
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