Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
In fact, the Clause may simply have been a natural concomitant of one of the Framers' most famous decisions. At the Convention, there was considerable debate about whether Members of the House of Representatives should be selected by the state legislatures or directly by the voters of each State. Taken as a whole, the first Clause of Article I, § 2— including the elector-qualifications provision—implements the Framers' decision. It specifies that the Representatives from each State are to be chosen by the State's voters (that is, the people eligible to participate in elections for the most numerous branch of the state legislature).
Third, the majority emphasizes that under Article I, § 5, "[e]ach House [of Congress] shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members." See ante, at 804, 811, 822. There was no recorded discussion of this provision in the Philadelphia Convention, and it appears simply to adopt the practice of England's Parliament. See n. 18, supra. According to the majority, however, § 5 implies
trolled who could vote in elections for the most numerous branch of the state legislature, and no state government could alter these requirements unless the people of the State (through the state constitution) decided to let it do so. See The Federalist No. 52, at 326.
Though one obviously could uphold the action of the people of Arkansas without reaching this issue, Madison's comments should not be read to suggest that the Elector-Qualifications Clause bars the people of a State from delegating their control over voter qualifications to the state legislature. The Clause itself refutes this reading; if a state constitution permits the state legislature to set voter qualifications, and if eligibility for the franchise in the State therefore turns on statutory rather than constitutional law, federal electors in the State still must meet the same qualifications as electors for the most numerous branch of the state legislature. Madison could not possibly have disagreed with this understanding of the Clause. Instead, he was simply explaining why, when it came to voter qualifications for House elections, the Framers had not followed the model of Article I, § 3, cl. 1, and vested ultimate control with the state legislatures (regardless of what the people of a State might provide in their state constitutions).
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