Residency rule for House discourages civic engagement
On March 28, Tennessee’s General Assembly passed legislation that requires a candidate in a primary election for the United States House of Representatives to have lived in Tennessee for at least three years preceding the election. This legislation is targeted at making exactly one candidate — former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, who moved to Nashville more than a year ago to work in the city’s thriving health care industry and to raise her young daughter — ineligible for the ballot.
The new residency requirement is both unconstitutional and anti-democratic.
The U.S. Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements to serve in the House of Representatives. Under Article I, Section 2, a representative must have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, must be at least 25 years old, and must live in the state they represent. That’s it. Neither Congress nor an individual state may impose additional eligibility requirements, such as a three-year-minimum residency period.
Twenty-seven years ago, in the case of U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed an effort by Arkansas to impose on congressional candidates additional eligibility requirements beyond those set forth in the Constitution. The court held that a state law is unconstitutional “when it has the likely effect of handicapping a class of candidates and has the sole purpose of creating additional qualifications indirectly.” That’s a good description of the new Tennessee residency requirement, except it is even more suspect because it is intended to handicap not a class of candidates but a single, specific candidate.
The state legislature should not be in the business of singling out individuals and telling them they are unfit for public service. If anything, the state legislature should welcome more civic engagement, particularly among new residents, and encourage all qualified citizens to seek public office.
Even as the legislature was considering the new residency requirement, some of those involved understood that it would not withstand constitutional scrutiny. Reportedly, legal counsel for the Senate State and Local Government Committee, where the bill was first considered, commented that “There have been cases like this before and they have all been ruled unconstitutional.” And the chairman of the Senate’s Republican Caucus expressed concern that “If it is indeed unconstitutional, we will spend a good deal of the state’s resources defending it in federal court.”
Sure enough, that expensive process has already begun. Residents of the 5th District have sued to invalidate the legislation, contending that they “have a right to vote for their desired candidate.”
These 5th District residents are, of course, correct. If they wish to vote for an immensely capable individual with a history of public service and deep knowledge of national and international issues — even if that individual is a relative newcomer to Nashville — the state legislature should not be permitted to deny them the opportunity to do so.
Having a large field of qualified candidates running for office should be viewed as a good thing. Eliminating one in an unconstitutional, complex legal maneuver is plainly wrong, desperate and shameful. These kinds of shenanigans prevent capable people from running for office in the first place. The legislature should use this energy to encourage all bright, experienced and competent citizens to run for office.
Amanda H. Beck, a resident of Tennessee's 5th Congressional District, served as the press director of the U.S. Peace Corps and as senior staff member at the International Republican Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting democracy around the world.