522
Opinion of the Court
ative body, which are essential requisites in the Legislatures of free Governments").16
In any event, even assuming the existence of the reserved right that petitioner asserts (and that Article VIII falls within its ambit), the question remains whether the State may use ballots for congressional elections as a means of giving its instructions binding force.
IV
The federal offices at stake "aris[e] from the Constitution itself." U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S., at 805. Because any state authority to regulate election to those offices could not precede their very creation by the Constitution, such power "had to be delegated to, rather than reserved by, the States." Id., at 804. Cf. 1 Story § 627 ("It is no original prerogative of state power to appoint a representative, a senator, or president for the union"). Through the Elections Clause, the Constitution delegated to the States the power to regulate the "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives," subject to a grant of authority to Congress to "make or alter such Regulations." Art. I, § 4, cl. 1; see United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315 (1941). No other constitutional
16 Of course, whether the members of a representative assembly should be bound by the views of their constituents, or by their own judgment, is a matter that has been the subject of debate since even before the Federal Union was established. For instance, in his classic speech to the electors of Bristol, Edmund Burke set forth the latter view:
"To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience, these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution." The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke 130 (J. Burke ed. 1867).
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007