Student Revives Debate on 199-Year-Old Amendment

A 199-year-old proposed constitutional amendment that would delay pay raises that members of Congress give themselves until voters have a say is being spurred toward Washington by a college student who says he’s tired of the “sneaky” way the pay hikes now come about.

The amendment has been approved by 23 state legislatures. Asked what will happen if the required three-fourths’ majority of states ratify it, a congressional researcher replied: “I don’t know.”

“It’s a sleeper,” said West Virginia legislator David McKinley, who this year added his state to the roll call of those ratifying the amendment. Georgia also approved it in 1988.

The amendment, first proposed in 1789 by the framers of the Constitution as part of a 12-amendment Bill of Rights, states: “No law varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.”

Bandwagon Hits Roadblock

By 1791, six states had ratified it: Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Vermont and Virginia. The bandwagon stalled until 1873, when Congress bestowed on itself a whopping raise and Ohio ratified the amendment. Wyoming approved it in 1978.

Then, in 1982, along came Gregory Watson, a University of Texas student who was researching a term paper on the death of the equal rights amendment when he was sidetracked “by this little book that said five or six amendments never had been ratified.”

In the dustbin with the congressional pay proposal were amendments allowing slavery, prohibiting U.S. citizens from accepting titles of nobility and outlawing child labor.

“With the December, 1981, fiasco still fresh in my mind--when Congress gave itself a special tax break which no other American would enjoy--I thought, ‘Gregory, why don’t you try to get this ratified?’ ”

Watson mailed letters to state legislators. In Maine, then-state Sen. Melvin Shute wrote back.

The next year, Shute introduced a resolution ratifying the 1789 amendment. “Boom, it passed,” Watson said.

Sends More Letters

Excited by success in Maine, Watson sent more letters and found more legislators willing to propose resolutions backing the amendment.

Colorado joined in 1984, followed by South Dakota, New Hampshire, Arizona, Tennessee and Oklahoma in 1985. New Mexico, Indiana and Utah ratified it in 1986, and Montana, Connecticut and Wisconsin in 1987--when Congress gave itself two pay raises.

Ratification resolutions have been introduced in every state but Arkansas, Watson said.

“I think the average American feels the way I do,” Watson said. “You shouldn’t begrudge a member of Congress from getting a fair wage. What I object to is the sneaky, tricky, cutesy way they hide these raises.”

He referred to last year’s maneuvering, in which the Senate and then the House made token votes refusing $12,100 pay raises and then pocketed the money. Consumer advocates attacked House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) for delaying the vote until its results no longer mattered.

Congress had already given itself a 3% increase last year, to compensate for inflation. Members of Congress now make $89,500.

“I think people are disgusted with the Congress,” said Georgia state Sen. Paul Coverdell, who helped ratify the amendment in his state this year. “Greg Watson has made an obsession out of rectifying the situation.”

Not everyone feels so strongly.

Was Madison Lukewarm?

Even James Madison, who made the pay stricture part of his proposed Bill of Rights, argued for it somewhat half-heartedly--possibly a reason why it isn’t among the 10 amendments that became the Bill of Rights.

“I do not believe this is a power which in the ordinary course of government will be abused,” Madison said, “. . . but there is a seeming impropriety in leaving any set of men without control to put their hands in the public coffers.”

West Virginia legislator James Humphries, calling the resolution “frivolous,” tried to kill it in committee.

“It’s as moldy as 6-month-old bread!” he contended.

Kansas state Rep. Robert H. Miller has refused to let the resolution out of his Federal and State Affairs Committee.

“We consider tinkering with the U.S. Constitution pretty serious stuff. I’m not going to do it based on the word of some guy from Texas,” Miller said, who called the amendment a “non-issue.”

Opposition to the amendment is fueled by self-interest, said Georgia’s Coverdell. Before this year’s success, his attempts to achieve ratification were blocked in committee for three years.

“I guess the committee members all hoped to be in Congress,” he said.

‘Like Apple Pie’

Nonetheless, he said: “It’s like apple pie and motherhood. Nobody was willing to oppose it. But I can tell you I got no support.”

What happens if Watson’s amendment wins ratification in the required 38 states and gets to Washington?

“I don’t know,” said David Huckabee, a Congressional Research Service analyst. But the amendment, which has no deadline, is bound to be a sore spot, he said.

“If Congress chooses to not accept the ratification because it’s so old, there’s a question of whether you could get enough legal footing to get it into court. It’s possible that the courts might not want to enter into the fray,” Huckabee said.

Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) backs the issue, “but I have some question as to whether the courts would uphold such an old amendment since some of the ratifications are so ancient.”

If need be, Byrd said, he will reintroduce the measure to ensure that courts uphold it.

Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino, (R-Ojai) is trying to do just that in the House, but his amendment remains in the House Judiciary Committee, said his aide, John Doherty.