920
Thomas, J., dissenting
Ark. Rule Civ. Proc. 56.40 Accordingly, the majority explicitly disclaims any reliance on the state court's purported finding about the effect of Amendment 73. See ante, at 830, n. 44.
Instead, the majority emphasizes another purported conclusion of the Arkansas Supreme Court. As the majority notes, the plurality below asserted that "[t]he intent" of Amendment 73 was "to disqualify congressional incumbents from further service." 316 Ark., at 266, 872 S. W. 2d, at 357. According to the majority, "[w]e must, of course, accept the state court's view of the purpose of its own law: We are thus authoritatively informed that the sole purpose of § 3 of Amendment 73 was to attempt to achieve a result that is forbidden by the Federal Constitution." Ante, at 829.
I am not sure why the intent behind a law should affect our analysis under the Qualifications Clauses. If a law does not in fact add to the constitutional qualifications, the mistaken expectations of the people who enacted it would not seem to affect whether it violates the alleged exclusivity of those Clauses. But in any event, the majority is wrong about what "the state court" has told us. Even the plurality
40 Even if one were inclined to believe that the Arkansas Supreme Court had departed from the usual practice and had purported to make a binding determination on a disputed issue of fact, we would not be foreclosed from examining the basis for that determination. To be sure, on direct review of a state court's judgment, we will not "conduct a more searching review of findings made in state trial court than we conduct with respect to federal district court findings." Hernandez v. New York, 500 U. S. 352, 369 (1991) (plurality opinion). But that is only to say that we will review state-court findings under the "clear error" standard. Ibid.; accord, id., at 372 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); cf. id., at 379 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (identifying no standard of review, but arguing that the state court's decision should be reversed because its underlying factual findings were erroneous). In certain areas, indeed, this Court apparently gives quite little deference to the initial factfinder, but rather "exercise[s] its own independent judgment" about the factual conclusions that should be drawn from the record. See Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 501, and n. 17 (1984) (Stevens, J.).
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