898
Thomas, J., dissenting
the power but the duty to treat the unconstitutional state law as a nullity. Thus, Congress could provide the appropriate remedy for the State's defiance, simply by seating the winner of the election.
It follows that the situation feared by the majority would arise only if the State refused to hold an election in the first place, on the ground that no candidate could meet the impossible qualification. But Congress unquestionably has the power to override such a refusal. Under the plain terms of § 4, Congress can make a regulation providing for the State to hold a congressional election at a particular time and place, and in a particular manner.22
3
In discussing the ratification period, the majority stresses two principal data. One of these pieces of evidence is no evidence at all—literally. The majority devotes considerable space to the fact that the recorded ratification debates do not contain any affirmative statement that the States can supplement the constitutional qualifications. See ante, at 812-815. For the majority, this void is "compelling" evidence that "unquestionably reflects the Framers' common understanding that States lacked that power." Ante, at 812, 814. The majority reasons that delegates at several of the ratifying conventions attacked the Constitution for failing to require Members of Congress to rotate out of office.23 If
22 Even if there is anything left of the majority's argument on this point, it would still have no bearing on whether the Framers intended to preclude the people of each State from supplementing the constitutional qualifications. Just as the Framers had no fear that the people of a State would destroy congressional elections by entirely disenfranchising themselves, see The Federalist No. 52, at 326, so the Framers surely had no fear that the people of the States would destroy congressional elections by entirely disqualifying all candidates.
23 As the majority notes, see ante, at 837, and 812, n. 22, the Philadelphia Convention had dropped without discussion a portion of the original Randolph Resolutions calling for Members of the House of Representatives
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