U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton

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U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued November 29, 1994
Decided May 22, 1995


Full case name:	U.S. Term Limits, Incorporated, et al., Petitioners v. Ray Thornton, et al.; Winston Bryant, Attorney General of Arkansas, Petitioner v. Bobbie E. Hill, et al.

Citations:	514 U.S. 779; 115 S. Ct. 1842; 131 L. Ed. 2d 881; 1995 U.S. LEXIS 3487; 63 U.S.L.W. 4413; 95 Cal. Daily Op. Service 3790; 95 Daily Journal DAR 6496; 9 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 29

Prior history:	On writs of cert. to the Supreme Court of Arkansas

Holding

States cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of Congress stricter than those in the Constitution

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer

Case opinions

Majority by: Stevens
Joined by: Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurrence by: Kennedy
Dissent by: Thomas
Joined by: Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia

Laws applied

U.S. Const. art. I

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995)^[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of Congress stricter than those specified in the Constitution. The decision invalidated the Congressional term limit provisions of 23 states.

1 Background and prior history
2 Supreme Court decision
3 References
4 Links

[edit] Background and prior history

Amendment 73 to Arkansas's state constitution denied ballot access to any Congressional candidate having already served three terms in the U.S. House or two terms in the U.S. Senate. Soon after the amendment's adoption by referendum at the general election on November 3, 1992, Bobbie Hill, a member of the League of Women Voters, sued in state court to have it invalidated. She alleged that the new restrictions amounted to an unwarranted expansion of the specific qualifications for membership in Congress enumerated in the U.S. Constitution:

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen,

and:

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen (Article I, section 2).

Both the trial court and the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed with Hill, declaring Amendment 73 unconstitutional.

[edit] Supreme Court decision

The Supreme Court affirmed by a 5-4 vote. The majority and minority articulated different views of the character of the federal structure established in the Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens noted that sustaining Amendment 73 would result in "a patchwork of state qualifications" for U.S. representatives, and described that consequence as inconsistent with "the uniformity and national character that the framers sought to insure." Concurring, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the amendment would "interfere" with the "relationship between the people of the Nation and their National Government." Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, countered that the the Constitution's authority depends on "the consent of the people of each individual State, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole," and argued that on the question of whether the qualifications clause is exclusive, "The Constitution is simply silent...And where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people."