516
Opinion of the Court
Respondent Don Gralike was a nonincumbent candidate for election in 1998 to the United States House of Representatives from Missouri's Third Congressional District. A month after Article VIII was amended, Gralike brought suit 6 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri to enjoin petitioner, the Secretary of State of Missouri, from implementing the Article, which the complaint alleges violates several provisions of the Federal Constitution.
The District Court decided the case on the pleadings, granting Gralike's motion for summary judgment. The court first held that Article VIII contravened the Qualifications Clauses of Article I of the Federal Constitution because it "has the sole purpose of creating additional qualifications for Congress indirectly and has the likely effect of handicapping a class of candidates for Congress." 996 F. Supp. 917, 920 (1998); see 996 F. Supp. 901, 905-909 (1998). The court further held that Article VIII places an impermissible burden on the candidates' First Amendment right to speak freely on the issue of term limits by "punish[ing] candidates for speaking out against term limits" through putting "negative words next to their names on the ballot," and by "us[ing] the threat of being disadvantaged in the election to coerce candidates into taking a position on the term limits issue." 996 F. Supp., at 910; see 996 F. Supp., at 920. Lastly, the court found Article VIII to be an indirect and unconstitutional attempt by the people of Missouri to interject themselves into the amending process authorized by Article V of the Federal Constitution. In doing so, the court endorsed the reasoning of other decisions invalidating provisions simified, § 20; exclusive jurisdiction of challenges to the Amendment in the Supreme Court of Missouri, § 21; and severance of "any portion, clause, or phrase" of Article VIII that is declared invalid, § 22.
6 Although Gralike intended to run for Congress when he filed suit, under Missouri law he could not formally file a declaration for candidacy until February 1998. App. 25-26.
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