North Dakota Statutes § 16.1-01-14 Statement of intent

1. Recognize that, along with the rest of the people of the United States, we have bestowed certain powers on the state and federal governments, and the governmental power flows ultimately from the people, not to them.

2. Do so in the partial exercise of our duty to elect representatives in Congress, under article I, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States, and our duty to elect United States senators, under the seventeenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

3. Recognize that the United States Supreme Court has never held that the people of a state do not have the constitutional power to establish term limits for federal legislators from their state.

4. Recognize that certain restrictions are placed on our ability to choose federal legislators, such that we could not, for example, elect a person twenty-eight years old to the senate or require a religious test for a federal legislator.

5. Assert that, aside from the requirements explicitly imposed by the Constitution of the United States, our power with respect to election of federal legislators is plenary.

6. Note that, under the Constitution of the United States, we have certain rights to control suffrage in elections, regulating such matters as residency, ballot access, and voting methods. As the possessors of the power to regulate suffrage, we also have the power to regulate certain qualifications of the agents we appoint by exercising our suffrage.

7. Exercise the legislative power we reserved to ourselves in section 1 of article III of the Constitution of North Dakota.

8. Recognize that, just as the federal Hatch Act [ 5 U.S.C. 7324 et seq.] restricts the candidacies of otherwise eligible persons from holding elected office, we have the same salutary purpose as does the Hatch Act, namely preventing an incumbent party from using government power to entrench itself permanently into government office.

9. Are mindful of the United States Supreme Court's statement, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metro Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528, 551 (1985), that state control of the election process is supposed to be a protection of the state peoples from the national government.

10. Recognize that increased concentration of power in the hands of incumbents has made this state's electoral system less free, less competitive, and most importantly, less representative.

11. Recognize that our interests are best served by having our United States senators and representatives in Congress be mindful of their origins and return to our ranks whence they came.

12. Make the following declarations and historical findings:

13. Believe this measure is constitutional and intend it to be so. Therefore, even if a court holds any portion of this measure unconstitutional, thereby substituting its own judgment for that we have expressed in enacting this measure, the legislative council shall require the publisher of the North Dakota Century Code to include the text of this measure, in the manner as if not so held but with appropriate annotation, to stand as a testament to our expressed will, and as a memorial to the defiance of that will by whatever court holds this measure unconstitutional. Furthermore, if any part of this measure is held unconstitutional, we intend that the rest of it be deemed effective, to the maximum extent permitted under section 1-02-20 .