Cite as: 531 U. S. 510 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
With her on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Paul R. Q. Wolfson, and Douglas N. Letter.*
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.
In U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779 (1995), we reviewed a challenge to an Arkansas law that prohibited the name of an otherwise eligible candidate for the United States Congress from appearing on the general election ballot if he or she had already served three terms in the House of Representatives or two terms in the Senate. We held that the ballot restriction was an indirect attempt to impose term limits on congressional incumbents that violated the Qualifications Clauses in Article I of the Constitution rather than a permissible exercise of the State's power to regulate the "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives" within the meaning of Article I, § 4, cl. 1.
In response to that decision, the voters of Missouri adopted in 1996 an amendment to Article VIII 1 of their State Constitution designed to lead to the adoption of a specified "Congressional Term Limits Amendment" to the Federal Constitution. At issue in this case is the constitutionality of Article VIII.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Nebraska by Don Stenberg, Attorney General, and L. Steven Grasz, Deputy Attorney General; for the Initiative and Referendum Institute by Patrick T. O'Brien and John M. Boehm; for Missouri Term Limits by Stephen J. Safranek; and for U. S. PIRG Education Fund by David Jonathan Fine.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the James Madison Center for Free Speech by James Bopp, Jr., and Heidi K. Meyer; and for the League of Women Voters of the United States et al. by Louis R. Cohen and Jonathan J. Frankel.
Kris W. Kobach, pro se, filed a brief as amicus curiae.
1 We shall follow the parties' practice of referring to the amendment as "Article VIII" even though it merely added new §§ 15 through 22 to the pre-existing article.
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