Back in 1982 a student at the University of Texas, researching the federal constitution for a term paper, stumbled onto a constitutional amendment proposed by the Congress in 1789, but never ratified by the states.
There was no deadline for ratification in the proposal, so Gregory Watson wrote his paper arguing that the amendment could still be ratified.
He got a “C.”
The professor thought it was just ridiculous to suppose that a proposal that was advanced by Congress 193 years before was still active.
Watson disagreed.
To prove his point, he started writing letters to the state legislatures. Within a year, Maine ratified the amendment, then Colorado. In 1992 Alabama became the 38th state to ratify and the 27th Amendment was born.
The Professor still refused to change Watson’s grade.
Here’s what the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution says:
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
In short, it prevents members of Congress from feathering their own nests; giving themselves a pay increase. They have to go back to the voters and get reelected before their paychecks are sweetened.
At least that is what everybody who worked to get the 27th amendment ratified believed.
But you gotta hand it to those Congressmen. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. They had plenty of will, so they came up with a clever way. They adopted COLA for themselves. COLA; that’s short for Cost Of Living Adjustment. Just like the unions.
Talk about clever. They included their COLA in a law they called The Ethics Reform Act of 1989. They could see the ratification of the 27th Amendment coming.
Apparently, they thought the ethical thing to do was to hurry up and give themselves an automatic annual raise before the 27th Amendment became the law of the land.
Oh, and by the way, the computation of their COLA included the provision that the annual adjustment could never be less than zero. Up every year, but never down.
To his credit, Gregory Watson didn’t give up. He and a few others brought an action in federal court to challenge the congressional COLA as a violation of the new 27th Amendment.
A federal District Court Judge in Colorado decided that the COLA, having been adopted before the amendment, was perfectly all right.
Watson and friends appealed to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court said they couldn’t take the case, because the plaintiffs didn’t have ‘standing’ to complain. The United States Supreme Court agreed, and refused to hear the case, too.
It’s a sad story. The general public was, and still is, overwhelmingly in favor of limiting the power of the politicians to increase their own compensation.
But what about COLA? Should their salaries by increased to reflect the cost of living?
Most Americans like COLA. They figure inflation isn’t their fault. They see their buying power going down, their savings shrinking in value, and they want to make more money to keep up.
But the first premise doesn’t apply to members of Congress. Inflation is their fault. The devaluation of currency is their fault. The cheapening of the dollar is the direct consequence of wild and irresponsible spending by the government in Washington.
I believe that the compensation of members of Congress should be spelled out in the Constitution. In dollars and cents. No adjustments. No power to give themselves or their successors a raise.
Why? Very simply because the Constitution of the United States gives the Congress the exclusive power to coin money. The power to coin money carries with it the responsibility to assure that the money which is coined is a stable and reliable medium of exchange.
Inflation is the most regressive form of taxation. It takes from the rich and poor alike. It impunes every contract. It invades every savings account.
How does it make sense to protect members of Congress from the inflation which they, themselves, have suffered to be visited upon their constituents?
If the compensation of members of Congress is fixed, their personal self interest will best be served by legislation which protects and even enhances the value of the dollar.
Fixing the compensation of members of Congress is an important first step in establishing a balanced budget and retiring the national debt.
And while we’re about it, we ought to close off another avenue of self aggrandizement. The House and Senate should be forbidden to pay extra money to the Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tem of the Senate, the majority and minority leaders of both houses and the chairmen or members of any committee.
It’s time to remind elected officials that they are public servants and not rulers. How about this:
All members of Congress shall receive a compensation of one thousand dollars for each day of attendance and no other compensation during or after their service. No law shall exempt members of Congress from any tax or obligation imposed by law.
12 comments:
Interesting. Problem is, a set dollar amount would give Congress incentive to cause deflation, which would probably be worse than mild inflation. Or they could just do what some third world countries do to fight inflation and declare a new dollar is ten old dollars. Other hand, it would stop them from sending themselves on vacation with the people's business unfinished.
In the end, I think COLA's not as bad as it looks. It removes from Congress the necessity of constantly voting on their own salaries, which is certainly a conflict of interest. What would improve it would be to have term limits also, so Congresspeople are voting on salaries of future members, not for themselves.
As for the Speaker and Leaders, they do more work than the average member, at least in theory, so it makes since they'd get a bit more. Tacking on amendments to unrelated bills is a whole other problem.
Not a set dollar amount, but rather a fixed dollar amount; a dollar amount that is controlled by the constitution itself. A dollar amount that also falls under the same restrictions and regulations placed on all other government employee pay and benefits. A dollar amount that shall also be restricted to no more than 60% once removed from office (based on actual time served, actual votes cast, and proof of representation of his/her constituent’s desires). If one is assured financial stability the remainder of their life, what remains to encourage that person to ensure clear representation of the people that put them there? How well did they represent their constituents? Congress shall not be allowed to vote on raises or awards for their own pay. Let the people they represent vote on individual conressman raises.
There has to be a way to correct the obvious conflict of interest other than turning the constitution into a document controlling congresses pay scale.
What about pegging their pay to that of federal employees, and making their COLA follow the same equation as they use for Social Security?
I struggle with the idea of a piece work, fixed dollar amount written into our constitution.
Gregory Noll- I agree with you in terms of the incentive to encourage clear representation. Any mechanism that secures elected officials in a way that their constituents are not secured, separates them from the same fate their legislation will decide. However, Allowing the people to determine congresses pay is a slippery slope as well. When it becomes a minimum wage job, only the very wealthy will be able to afford to serve.
Arturius - I share your hesitation to the fixed dollar amount. The direction of inflation isn't something I want to be tied to the self interest of congress outside of the obvious collective social interest we all share.
Judge Brennan - Does this statement mean congress would have to participate in payroll taxes? "No law shall exempt members of Congress from any tax or obligation imposed by law." Then how would there participation in Social Security gel with this "and no other compensation during or after their service." I could argue that this is compensation that is directly tied to the salary they received while paying payroll taxes, and serving in the congress. (not that I would. Just playing devil's advocate)
Several comments:
1. Why not have thier pay set by the state they represent?
2. Term limits are needed. My sugestion is 12 years for both houses (or combination of service). 12 years...thats it. If you serve 6 as a senator then yo can only serve 3 terms in the house.
3. You wuld have to serve the full 12years to qualify for a full pension (limited to 50% of your adverage annual compensation). If you do not serve 12 years then your pension is reduced by 1/12th for every year you did not serve.
4. Health care should be the sae as offered to the military. Full coverage for the member and "Tri-Care" for spouse and dependents. If it is good enough for our soldiers it is good enough for all who serve the goverment.
5. All congressmen and senators need to participate in SS and Medicare with the same rulesof eligibility as any other citizen.
6. All congreesmen and senators (if not set by their state but the amount kept in federal hands) recieve the same amount of compensation. No additional pay for "Designated Duties" (although I do think that there may haveto be additional expenses authorized for some duties/offices).
7. All members recieve the same amount to cover the expenses of conducting their duties. And, their budgets must be itemized and posted for public review.
Thats all I have for now.
SSGRichDAV
The issue of pay goes beyond the individual member of Congress. If the pay represents the job they're doing, why shouldn't they be doing the job. Congress has DC staff and district staff, too. Perhaps, each elective office should have a total cost allowance and let the member decide how it gets allocated and to whom. Or, perhaps, an amendment could tie pay for the entire Congress to increases in population in conjunction with the census (every ten years) and let the Congress figure out how to divide it among the members (and staffs) of the two chambers. In other words, put the entire legislative branch on a budget that is tied to something that the legislative branch cannot control.
The root issue, however, is that no member can represent the population of districts that have ballooned from the 30,000 to 50,000 range to the 700,000 range. And back when Senators were beholden to the legislatures, their constituents were not the entire population of the state.
The House member ceiling was first set by Congress in 1909 in anticipation of the 1910 census. Accounting for two new States in 1912, the current ceiling was set in 1929. That arbitrary limit, if removed, would expand the House, reduce the cost of winning a seat, decrease the effectiveness of lobbying, and have a salutary effect on many other related money and power issues.
In sum, I suggest that limiting pay is attacking a symptom. We had 391 House members in 1909 based on 1900 census population of 76 million people. Just keeping that ratio of House members to population, there should be about 1600 members of the House today. Some would argue that number should be greater. Then we can cut their pay, too, as they may actually be representing a fraction of the people that they do today.
Let's say you and nine other people make an average of $50,000 a year. You all decide that for various reasons it would be beneficial to "pool" your money ($500,000 a year), then hire someone to write all the checks and pay all the bills for you, since you're going to be elsewhere most of the time just "enjoying life".
So you all "advertise" for a "responsible" person who will have your collective "Power of Attorney". And of course you want the most for your money (cost-benefit) so you decide the best pay for this job is "minimum wage", since you get the "most" for the "least".
You finally decide on your new employee whose a very nice fellow with a great smile and nice manner who assures you he's the best one for the job and not to worry about the meager (less than $20k a yr) pay as he thinks so highly of the "principles" you espouse that people like yourselves "deserve" what he's going to do "for" you.
I don't need to finish the story as you already know the ending. The point here is that it's reasonable to pay such people far more than what it would take to keep them from "hunger". These are people who can spend you into bankruptcy, yet there is even "talk" of there pay? Consider that your employee above made about 4% of the total money he "controlled".
If every member of Congress, the President & the Supreme Court made $1,000,000 a year, it would still be less then the "spare change" we'd be paying them. It would totally be less then one billion dollars a year to pay the people who write the checks on several thousand times that amount to per year.
Think about it/mac
Good thoughts by all. I am opposed to politicians having benefits for life, period. I agree with those above giving back power to the states to determine pay and benefits, they should also be the ones that provide them, not the federal government , because they are OUR (small voice raise) representatives aren't they? The states also need the power to impeach them, instead of Congress. These changes would possibly reinforce the principle that they work for we the people of our state or congressional district, not a political party, lobby group, or just their own selfish interests.
I agree with Daniel
It is more than just the pay that they receive. My Congressman, as I read by searching the internet, increased his wealth from just under $3 million when he took office, to about $9 million after his first term.
That does not engender within me a sense that he has been concentrating on solving our problems by his efforts in Congress.
How do we make the income,net worth, of all Congressmen, Senators, Judges, and the President, open for review by all? Should there be prohibitions against this sort of monetary increase while in office?
It seems highly disproportionate that members of Congress, as well as other elected officials, garner salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, in addition to the value of their benefits packages, and 'retire', at whatever point, often as some sort of consultant to whichever lobbyist has been lining their pockets during the time of their 'service to their country and to the taxpayers, and with an income guaranteed for the remainder of their lives as a result of their service in Congress.
It would appear that frequently these elected representatives are 'in session' approximately 1/2 a year, with the balance of possible 'working days' dispersed among the several categories of 'travel time', 'in recess' and days that begin only after 6:30pm.
I would submit that these positions of 'service' would attract far fewer motivated primarily by greed if the remuneration were to be more in line with that appropriate to a time of ACTUAL SERVICE TO THE NATION AND TO THE TAXPAYERS, rather than as a time to feather one's nest comfortably.
Is there some special quality of the work involved that merits any of these elected officials, INCLUDING POTUS, receiving financial compensation greater than that of the average worker in this country? Expenses associated with performance of their duties seem to be covered from other sources, so where exactly is the compelling need for such exorbitant remuneration? If the thought behind the rate of pay is to compensate them sufficiently that they will be less susceptible to accepting 'gifts' from 'special interests', then it would appear that philosophy is not working as intended.
Perhaps no elected official has taken greater advantage of the 'perks' of their position than has the head of the family (and his spouse) currently occupying the White House, that travels with ostentatious retinues, that includes offspring as 'staffers', and that brings along the family pet in planes that are very nearly designated exclusively for the traveling convenience of such creature.
During all the turmoil over the budget, the overwhelming and rapidly increasing debt, the lowering of the credit rating of our country to an embarrassing -AA, NOT ONE OF THESE GREEDY ELECTED OFFICIALS has offered to cut their own pay/benefits in an effort to accomplish what every housewife knows must be done to bring the household budget in balance. A variety of 'cuts' have been proposed, generally beginning with Social Security and Medicare, the financial and medical life line of those most vulnerable and least able to seek out alternatives for themselves at this point in their life!
NO ONE has thought to ask elected officials to 'personally trim back', but tell me, please, WHY SHOULD WE NOT EXPECT THEM TO??
Just a thought...
I agree with SSGR on most of it.
Have the congressional pay set by the congressional districts. The Senate pay set by the states they represent. If they want a raise, they have to ask their constituents for a raise, and ask their constituents to pay for it.
I also suggest that their "pay" be tied to the national unemployment rate. (The true rate, the U6.) No one should be receiving "raise" (or even a paycheck) if the national unemployment rate is above 10%. I suggest that their pay is reduced 10% for every 1% of unemployment over the considered 0% (frictional/structural unemployment. 5%?) This way, you would have their pay attached to their performance, like it isn't now. They are insulated from the repercussions of their laws, which is now out of control.
I strongly suggest that there shouldn't be any retirement/pensions nor benefits attached to such a job, either. Not during, not after. We need to make them live with the same economic realities that they create for us. It's way past time for our elected officials to stop treating themselves like "Royalty" while imposing their laws on the "serfs" in the nation.
I do not believe the federal employees should be receiving their pensions/packages, either. People who live on the taxpayers' dime should be subject to the same economic realities the rest of the nation has.
I also believe, this undocumented immunity from personal liability should be removed. You should be able to sue a federal employee/elected official for harm caused by them under the cover of authority. If you put their own personal money on the line, you will have a much different government. You won't have an EPA employee harassing a citizen if they are personally responsible for paying that citizen for the harm/damages/legal fees incurred.
If a federal employee will have to pay for the ridiculous "grants" out of their own cash, you won't have silly grants to study nonsense.
Put their own money on the line - and we'll get personal "accountability" in the federal government. . . .
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