Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
I would go further, for I see nothing in the Constitution that precludes the people of each State (if they so desire) from authorizing their elected state legislators to prescribe qualifications on their behalf. If the people of a State decide that they do not trust their state legislature with this power, they are free to amend their state constitution to withdraw it. This arrangement seems perfectly consistent with the Framers' scheme. From the time of the framing until after the Civil War, for example, the Federal Constitution did not bar state governments from abridging the freedom of speech or the freedom of the press, even when those freedoms were being exercised in connection with congressional elections. It was the state constitutions that determined whether state governments could silence the supporters of disfavored congressional candidates, just as it was the state constitutions that determined whether the States could persecute people who held disfavored religious beliefs or could expropriate property without providing just compensation. It would not be at all odd if the state constitutions also determined whether the state legislature could pass qualifications statutes.
But one need not agree with me that the people of each State may delegate their qualification-setting power in order to uphold Arkansas' Amendment 73. Amendment 73 is not the act of a state legislature; it is the act of the people of Arkansas, adopted at a direct election and inserted into the State Constitution. The majority never explains why giving effect to the people's decision would violate the "democratic principles" that undergird the Constitution. Instead, the majority's discussion of democratic principles is directed entirely to attacking eligibility requirements imposed on the people of a State by an entity other than themselves.
The majority protests that any distinction between the people of the States and the state legislatures is "untenable" and "astonishing." See ante, at 809, n. 19. In the limited area of congressional elections, however, the Framers them-
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