## Facts

- Arkansas voters adopted Amendment 73 (1992), which limited terms for federal offices by restricting ballot access for certain congressional candidates.
- The amendment barred Arkansas election officials from certifying, and from placing on the ballot, any candidate for the U.S. House who had been elected to three or more prior terms, and any candidate for the U.S. Senate who had been elected to two or more prior terms.
- The amendment did not categorically prevent service because affected candidates could attempt to run as write-ins, but it denied them standard ballot access.
- Arkansas voters challenged the amendment, arguing it effectively added to the U.S. Constitution’s Article I qualifications for Representatives and Senators (age, citizenship, and state inhabitancy at election).
- An Arkansas trial court held the federal-office term-limit provision unconstitutional.
- The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed, concluding States lack authority to change, add to, or diminish the Constitution’s qualifications for congressional service.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted review and consolidated the cases.

## Issues

1. Whether a State may impose additional qualifications for Members of Congress beyond those enumerated in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.
2. Whether a state ballot-access restriction designed to enforce congressional term limits is a permissible regulation of the “Times, Places and Manner” of elections under the Elections Clause (Article I, § 4) or an unconstitutional additional qualification.
3. Whether the Tenth Amendment reserves to States the power to adopt additional eligibility requirements for federal legislators.

## Decision

- The Court affirmed the judgment invalidating § 3 of Arkansas Amendment 73 as applied to elections for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.
- In a 5–4 decision (Justice Stevens for the Court), the Court held States may not impose qualifications for prospective Members of Congress stricter than those specified in the Constitution.
- The Court rejected the argument that the measure was merely a permissible election “manner” regulation, concluding it functioned as an indirect substantive disqualification.
- The Court rejected reliance on the Tenth Amendment, reasoning the power to add congressional qualifications is not a pre-constitutional state power reserved to the States.
- Justice Kennedy concurred, emphasizing that States may not interfere with the relationship between the people of the Nation and the National Government.
- Justice Thomas dissented (joined by the Chief Justice and Justices O’Connor and Scalia), reasoning that because the Constitution is silent on state-added qualifications, States retain that authority absent an express prohibition.

## Legal Principles

- The Qualifications Clauses of Article I provide the exclusive qualifications for service in Congress; neither Congress nor the States may supplement them.
- A State’s attempt to deny ballot access to a class of congressional candidates based on prior service operates as an unconstitutional additional qualification, even if framed as an election regulation.
- The Elections Clause permits States to enact procedural regulations governing the times, places, and manner of holding congressional elections, but it does not authorize substantive exclusions of candidate classes.
- The Tenth Amendment does not reserve to States a power to add qualifications for federal office where the asserted power is not an original state power and the Constitution’s structure assigns the matter to federal law.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Article I’s qualifications for Members of Congress are exclusive and uniform nationwide, invalidating state-imposed congressional term limits enforced through ballot-access restrictions and limiting state election regulation to procedural rules that do not function as candidate disqualifications.


U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995)