Per Curiam
forced to exercise its disability removal power before voting begins if it wished for its decision to have any effect on the current election cycle. Perhaps a State may burden congressional authority in such a way when it exercises its “exclusive” sovereign power over its own state offices. Taylor, 178 U. S., at 571. But it is implausible to suppose that the Constitution affirmatively delegated to the States the authority to impose such a burden on congressional power with respect to candidates for federal office. Cf. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 436 (1819) (“States have no power … to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress”).
Nor have the respondents identified any tradition of state enforcement of Section 3 against federal officeholders or candidates in the years following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.[1] Such a lack of historical precedent is generally a “ ‘telling indication’ ” of a “ ‘severe constitutional problem’ ” with the asserted power. United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 677 (2023) (quoting Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 505 (2010)). And it is an especially telling sign here, because as noted, States did disqualify persons from holding state offices following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. That pattern of disqualification with respect to state, but not federal offices provides “persuasive evidence of a general understanding” that the States lacked enforcement power with respect to the latter. U. S. Term Limits, 514
- ↑ We are aware of just one example of state enforcement against a would-be federal officer. In 1868, the Governor of Georgia refused to commission John Christy, who had won the most votes in a congressional election, because—in the Governor’s view—Section 3 made Christy ineligible to serve. But the Governor’s determination was not final; a committee of the House reviewed Christy’s qualifications itself and recommended that he not be seated. The full House never acted on the matter, and Christy was never seated. See 1 A. Hinds, Precedents of the House of Representatives §459, pp. 470–472 (1907).
