Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
The majority asserts that "state practice with respect to residency requirements does not necessarily indicate that States believed that they had a broad power to add restrictions," because the States "may simply have viewed district residency requirements as the necessary analog to state residency requirements." Ante, at 827, n. 41. This argument fails even on its own terms. If the States had considered district residency requirements necessary for the success of a district election system, but had agreed with the majority that the Constitution prohibited them from supplementing the constitutional list of qualifications, then they simply would have rejected the district system and used statewide elections. After all, the majority deems district residency requirements just as unconstitutional as other added qualifications. See ante, at 799.
The majority's argument also fails to account for the durational element of the residency requirements adopted in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia (and soon thereafter in Tennessee). These States obliged Congressmen not only to be district residents when elected but also to have been district residents for at least a year before then. See n. 31, supra.
Finally, the majority's argument cannot explain the election schemes of Maryland and Georgia. Though these States did divide themselves into congressional districts, they allowed every voter to vote for one candidate from each
on policy grounds, as an undue restriction on the people's ability to elect nonresidents if they wanted to do so. In any event, the New York Senate obviously considered the requirement constitutional.
There is evidence that some members of the Pennsylvania Legislature considered the Qualifications Clauses to be exclusive. See 1 id., at 282- 288. Of course, they also believed that § 2 of Article I—which calls for Members of the Federal House of Representatives to be "chosen . . . by the People of the several States"—forbade Pennsylvania to elect its representatives by districts. See id., at 283. The legislatures of the five States that adopted district residency requirements, who had the Pennsylvania example before them, disagreed with the Pennsylvania legislators.
909
Page: Index Previous 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007