A Menckenian What-If: Members of Congress Not Required To Be Inhabitants of Their States

In 1922 a symposium was published entitled *Civilization in the United States* edited by Harold Stearns, with essays on The City (by Lewis Mumford), The Law (Zechariah Chafee, Jr.), Music (Deems Taylor), Sport and Play (Ring Lardner), The Literary Life (Van Wyck Brooks), etc. The essay on Politics is by H. L. Mencken, and it poses an interesting what-if. https://archive.org/stream/civilizationinun00stea#page/20/mode/2up Mencken starts off his essay as follows:

"'No person shall be a Representative who...shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen...No person shall be a Senator who...shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.'

"Specialists in political archaeology will recognize these sentences: they are from Article I, sections 2 and 3, of the Constitution of the United States. I have heard and forgotten how they got there; no doubt the cause lay in the fierce jealousy of the States. But whatever the fact, I have a notion that there are few provisions of the constitution that have had a more profound effect upon the character of practical politics in the Republic, or, indirectly, upon the general colour of American thinking in the political department. They have made steadily for parochialism in legislation, for the security and prosperity of petty local bosses and machines, for the multiplication of pocket and rotten boroughs of the worst kind, and above all for the progressive degeneration of the honesty and honour of representatives...Find me the worst ass in Congress, and I'll show you a man they have helped to get there and to stay there. Find me the most shameless scoundrel, and I'll show you another.

"No such centripedal mandate, as far as I have been able to discover, is in the fundamental law of any other country practicing the representative system. An Englishman, if ambition heads him toward St. Stephen's, may go hunting for a willing constituency wherever the hunting looks best, and if he fails in the Midlands he may try again in the South, or in the North, or in Scotland or Wales. A Frenchman of like dreams has the same privilege; the only condition, added after nineteen years of the Third Republic, is that he may not be a candidate in two or more *arondissements* at once. And so with a German, an Italian, or a Spaniard. But not so with an American. He must be an actual inhabitant of the State he aspires to represent at Washington. More, he must be in all save extraordinary cases, an actual inhabitant of the congressional district--for here, by a characteristic American process, the fundamental law is sharpened by custom. True enough, this last requirement is not laid down by the constitution. It would be perfectly legal for the thirty-fifth New York district, centering at Syracuse, to seek its congressman in Manhattan, or even at Sing Sing. In various iconoclastic States, in fact, the thing has been occasionally done. But not often; not often enough to produce any appreciable effect. The typical congressman remains a purely local magnifico, the gaudy cock of some small and usually far from appetizing barnyard...[Mencken goes on to discuss how although the Constitution directly affects only the structure of the federal government, its example has led to similar "localism" in state legislatures, etc.]

"It is my contention that this strangle-hold of the local machines would be vastly less firm if it could be challenged, not only by rebels within the constituency but also by salient men from outside. [Mencken goes on to discuss how TR and Wilson forced themselves on party bosses who didn't like them.] The same possibility of unhorsing the machine politicians, I believe, exists in even the smallest electoral unit. All that is needed is the chance to bring in the man. Podunk cannot produce her himself, save by a sort of miracle. If she has actually hatched him, he is far away by the time he has come to his full stature and glitter--in the nearest big city, in Chicago or New York. Podunk is proud of him, and many other Podunks, perhaps, are stirred by his ideas, his attitudes, and his fine phrases--but he lives, say, in some Manhattan congressional district which has the Hon. Patrick Googan as its representative by divine right, and so there is no way to get him into the halls of Congress. In his place goes the Hon. John P. Balderdash...always a snide and petty fellow, always on the best of terms with the local bosses, always eager for a job on any terms they lay down. The yokels vote for the Hon. Mr. Balderdash, not because they admire him, but because their only choice is between him and the Hon. James Bosh. If anything even remotely resembling a first-rate man could come into the contest, if it were lawful for them to rid themselves of their recurrent dilemma by soliciting the interest of such a man, then they would often enough rise in their might and compel their parish overlords, as the English put it, to adopt him. But the constitution protects these overlords in their business, and in the long run the voters resign all thought of deliverance."

Mencken is at times more entertaining than convincing. It is curious, given his reputation for cynicism about the "booboisie" or "yokels" that he really takes an idealistic view of them here--he thinks they appreciate quality (which of course is always found only in big cities...) and would vote for it if only the Constitution allowed them to do so. That the voters of Podunk may actually *prefer* John Balderdash to a more cosmopolitan candidate does not seem to occur to him. Anyway, if the local machine were really unpopular, a local figure, however mediocre, could be found to successfully challenge it. Indeed, since Mencken wrote, there has been a marked decline in the power of local machines in America.

Still, it is an intriguing question--what if there were no constitutional requirement that Senators and Representatives be inhabitants of their states? (We'll assume that the Seventeenth Amendment doesn't change the situation for the Senate, and that both before and after it an "outsider" may be selected.) My guess is that--given the importance of the "states rights" tradition in the US and the jealousy of the states which Mencken mentions--a *tradition* of only electing state (and in the case of the House, local) residents could emerge even without any constitutional requirements--as Mencken notes, nothing in the Constitution says that Representatives must be residents of their own district, but tradition has made this almost a requirement. Still, a tradition can be more flexible than a written law, and in particular I can see cases where a celebrated "local boy (or girl) made good" could be elected from a district where he or she has long since ceased to live. And some national heroes could probably get elected even from states or districts with which they have had no contact at all.

Of course, one can always change one's legal residence anyway--note how quickly Dick Cheney became a legal resident of Wyoming, where he had not lived for years, in 2000, when two Texans could not run on the same ticket (at least not if they both wanted to get the electoral votes of Texas). Still, that does not mean the current requirements are meaningless. Sometimes the "carpetbagger" issue does work against candidates (of course it might still work against them anyway, but the sense that a candidate is disobeying at least the "spirit" of the Constitution may add to the damage). And some people will not go through the charade of establishing legal residence in state X or congressional district Y, but would be perfectly willing to represent that state or district in Congress if such residence were not required.

(BTW, Mencken's statement that no other countries have similar requirements is inaccurate, at least now. The Argentine Consitution provides that "In order to be a deputy it is necessary to have attained to the age of 25 years; to have been four years a fully qualified citizen; and to be a native of the province electing him or to have two years of immediate residence therein." http://www.biblioteca.jus.gov.ar/argentina-constitution.pdf (Admittedly, this does seem to allow a Podunk native who has moved to the big city to be a candidate for Deputy from Podunk without moving back.) Similarly, the Mexican constitution requires a deputy "To be a native of the State or Territory in which the election is held, or a resident thereof with effective residence for more than six months prior to its date." https://www.oas.org/juridico/mla/en/mex/en_mex-int-text-const.pdf)
 
I take it if the Constitution never establishes that principle, then we would avoid most of the "carpetbagger" baggage such candidates bring? For instance, Hillary Clinton as the senator of New York when she had few links to New York. Of course, we could draw up a very long list of candidates who established the minimum to get residence in their district/state to qualify for the ballot, and this would presumably mean these individuals wouldn't need to. As a secondary, I wonder what such a change would do to the whole perception of out-of-state money in elections, since it's always a good way to attack your opponent by noting that most of their money came from out of state.

Maybe if this were the case, then larger/more powerful states would have their elections be more prestigious? Like if I'm a rising star in the Democrat or Republican Party from some random state, then I'll be aiming for seats from California or Texas or whatever.

It would also be interesting if some sort of Senate reform (associated with the 17th amendment?) allows for anyone from any state to run for any state's senate elections. Also, if this is a principle since the Constitution is passed, it might make things easier to get rid of FPTP voting in the US and move toward a proportional system for one or both houses of Congress.
 
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