Constitution Article 1 §3.3: Qualifications for Senator

Lately democracy has been taking a global beating, and the U.S. has not been immune, what with a Russian-influenced presidential election and a new president who appears not to understand or even be familiar with the Constitution. I want to be better at democracy than old 45 is, so I’m studying the Constitution, and blogging what I learn. I’d love to make it a study group. After all, in a functioning democracy we should all be Constitutional scholars.

For those of you just tuning in, there are seven articles in the Constitution. I’m currently reading the First Article, which deals with the legislative branch of government. It has 10 sections. Section One establishes a bicameral Congress and Section Two deals with the House of Representatives. I’m currently reading Section Three. Today is Clause 3.

Article 1 §3.3

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

Okay, so the qualifications for Senators are:

• Age at least 30 because Senators should be proper grownups (even more grown up than Representatives, who only have to be 25).
• Citizen for at least 9 years because you should be familiar with America’s government and its issues and not be some rando FOB with a foreign agenda.
• An inhabitant of the state he will represent. (I had to read that one a couple times – the double negative through me for a loop at first.) Well, obviously, you should represent your own state.

We’ll ignore the masculine pronoun for now.

Wow, that one was easy.