The Constitution Article I Section 2 Clauses 1 – 2

Article I Section 2 Clauses 1-2

[1] The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

[2] No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of the State in which he shall be chosen.

Again pretty simple. This part sets out how the House is comprised and how the members are chosen. The members are chosen every two years by votes of each state, they have to be citizens for at least seven years, be 25 years old, and live in the state they want to run in.

It also lays out that states can not add any further controls on members of congress, such as term limits, special recall elections, etc as these provisions are not specified by the Constitution. It does allow the states to determine who is eligible to vote, as whatever requirements that are necessary to cast a vote for members of the larger house of the state legislature will be sufficient to vote for the U.S. House of Representatives.

In recent years the Supreme Court has ruled that the passage “by the people of the several states” along with parts of the 14th amendment, that each congressional district contain roughly the same number of people. This ensures that each person in America has an equal vote for a congressional election.