22 Mai 1995 Jahr - The United States Supreme Court affirmed that Amendment 73 of the Arkansas constitution was Unconstitutional
Beschreibung:
5-4 Decision
Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that:
“Finally, state-imposed restrictions, unlike the congressionally imposed restrictions at issue in Powell, violate a third idea central to this basic principle: that the right to choose representatives belongs not to the States, but to the people. ... Following the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913, this ideal was extended to elections for the Senate. The Congress of the United States, therefore, is not a confederation of nations in which separate sovereigns are represented by appointed delegates, but is instead a body composed of representatives of the people."
Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, countered that:
"It is ironic that the Court bases today's decision on the right of the people to "choose whom they please to govern them." Under our Constitution, there is only one State whose people have the right to "choose whom they please" to represent Arkansas in Congress... Nothing in the Constitution deprives the people of each State of the power to prescribe eligibility requirements for the candidates who seek to represent them in Congress. The Constitution is simply silent on this question. And where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people."
Zugefügt zum Band der Zeit:
Senate Project
Datum:
