History lesson

As an adult, I have tried to stay reasonably aware of what is going on in the nation and around the world, but I have occasional lapses. While preparing recently for his AP U.S History exam, my son asked me what the 27th Amendment was about. I had absolutely no idea.

It was ratified when I was thirty years old, and I would have thought I would have noticed something so momentous as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. They don’t happen that often! But in May 1992 I did have somewhat of an excuse, as I had given birth to my first son less than two months earlier, and I was too busy nursing, taking pictures, and trying to catch up on my sleep to take notice of what was going on in Washington, D.C.

Since it was officially certified by the Archivist of the United States on May 18 (having been ratified on May 5, when the 38th state approved it), I decided today was a good day to learn about it. I had read somewhere recently (since my son’s question) that it dealt with Congressional pay raises. Specifically, it says that a salary change for the members of Congress may not take effect until after the next general election. This, of course, allows voters to express their displeasure with raises they see as excessive or undeserved by voting out the legislators who passed the raises. And that gives legislators somewhat of a disincentive to reward themselves merely for showing up (and some of them don’t show up all that often, from what I have read).

It’s been sixteen years since then, and I’m not aware that the amendment has done much to improve things. Turns out, Congress has been designating its annual increases as “cost-of-living adjustments” rather than pay raises, so the provisions of the amendment do not apply. No wonder voters have become so cynical about the politicians in Washington.

What I find most interesting about this amendment is that it was originally proposed in 1789. At the time, approval by eleven states was required to amend the constitution, and only six states did so. As no deadline had been set for ratification, however, it merely remained dormant and forgotten until 1982, when a university student rediscovered it. A push was begun for ratification, and ten years later it finally became law – 202½ years after the initial proposal.