Bound Volume 514 - Supreme Court of the United States

514us3$60N 06-15-98 09:38:32 PAGES OPINPGT
Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
ers’ scheme. In fact, we have described “the authority of
the people of the States to determine the qualifications of
their most important government officials” as “an authority
that lies at the heart of representative government.” Gregory
v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 463 (1991) (internal quotation
marks omitted) (refusing to read federal law to preclude
States from imposing a mandatory retirement age on state
judges who are subject to periodic retention elections).
When the people of a State themselves decide to restrict the
field of candidates whom they are willing to send to Washington
as their representatives, they simply have not violated
the principle that “the people should choose whom they
please to govern them.” See 2 Elliot 257 (remarks of Alexander
Hamilton at the New York Convention).
At one point, the majority suggests that the principle identified
by Hamilton encompasses not only the electorate’s
right to choose, but also “the egalitarian concept that the
opportunity to be elected [is] open to all.” See ante, at 794;
see also ante, at 819–820. To the extent that the second
idea has any content independent of the first, the majority
apparently would read the Qualifications Clauses to create a
personal right to be a candidate for Congress, and then to
set that right above the authority of the people of the States
to prescribe eligibility requirements for public office. But
we have never suggested that “the opportunity to be
elected” is open even to those whom the voters have decided
not to elect. On that rationale, a candidate might have a
right to appear on the ballot in the general election even
though he lost in the primary. But see Storer v. Brown, 415
U. S. 724, 726, n. 16 (1974); see also Bullock v. Carter, 405
U. S. 134, 142–143 (1972) (rejecting the proposition that there
is any fundamental right to be a candidate, separate and
apart from the electorate’s right to vote). Thus, the majority
ultimately concedes that its “egalitarian concept” derives
entirely from the electorate’s right to choose. See ante, at
794, n. 11; see also ante, at 819 (deriving the “egalitarian
879