530
Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in judgment
intended to prohibit nonbinding petitions or memorials by the State as an entity.
If there are to be cases in which a close question exists regarding whether the State has exceeded its constitutional authority in attempting to influence congressional action, this case is not one of them. In today's case the question is not close. Here the State attempts to intrude upon the relationship between the people and their congressional delegates by seeking to control or confine the discretion of those delegates, and the interference is not permissible.
With these observations, I concur in the Court's opinion.
Justice Thomas, concurring in Parts I and IV and concurring in the judgment.
I continue to believe that, because they possess "reserved" powers, "the people of the States need not point to any affirmative grant of power in the Constitution in order to prescribe qualifications for their representatives in Congress, or to authorize their elected state legislators to do so." U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 846 (1995) (Thomas, J., dissenting). For this reason, I disagree with the Court's premise, derived from U. S. Term Limits, that the States have no authority to regulate congressional elections except for the authority that the Constitution expressly delegates to them. See ante, at 522. Nonetheless, the parties conceded the validity of this premise, see Brief for Petitioner 25-26; Brief for Respondents 12-13, and I therefore concur.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice O'Connor joins, concurring in the judgment.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, but on the ground that Missouri's Article VIII violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, I believe that Article VIII violates the First Amendment right of a political candidate, once lawfully on the ballot, to
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