Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
supporters of ratification had believed that the individual States could supplement the constitutional qualifications, the majority argues, they would have blunted these attacks by pointing out that rotation requirements could still be added State by State. See ante, at 814.
But the majority's argument cuts both ways. The recorded ratification debates also contain no affirmative statement that the States cannot supplement the constitutional qualifications. While ratification was being debated, the existing rule in America was that the States could prescribe eligibility requirements for their delegates to Congress, see n. 3, supra, even though the Articles of Confederation gave Congress itself no power to impose such qualifications. If
"to be incapable of re-election for the space of [blank space] after the expiration of their term of service." 1 Farrand 20. This provision, which at a minimum would have barred all Members of the House from serving consecutive terms, was abandoned without objection when the Convention voted to require House Members to stand for election every three years. See id., at 214-217; see also id., at 362 (opting for 2-year terms instead). Subsequently, indeed, some members of the Convention appeared to be unaware that a rotation requirement had ever been proposed. See 2 id., at 120 (remarks of Gouverneur Morris).
The majority properly does not cite the omission of this nationwide rotation requirement as evidence that the Framers meant to preclude individual States from adopting rotation requirements of their own. Just as individual States could extend the vote to women before the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment, could prohibit poll taxes before the adoption of the Twenty-fourth Amendment, and could lower the voting age before the adoption of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, so the Framers' decision not to impose a nationwide limit on congressional terms did not itself bar States from adopting limits of their own. See, e. g., Ga. Const. of 1877, § 2-602 (adopted Aug. 3, 1943) (reducing voting age to 18 nearly three decades before the Twenty-sixth Amendment was proposed); Harman v. Forssenius, 380 U. S. 528, 539 (1965) (noting that by the time the Twenty-fourth Amendment was proposed, "only five States retained the poll tax as a voting requirement"); Congressional Research Service, The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation 1571 (1973) (reporting that 11 States had adopted women's suffrage by the time the Nineteenth Amendment was proposed). Cf. ante, at 837, and n. 50.
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