Not Bad for Government Work

IF DEAD PRESIDENTS COULD SMILE IN THEIR GRAVES, James Madison would be beaming. Nearly 203 years after the fourth President proposed a constitutional amendment to prevent Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise, a requisite 38 states have agreed that there is “a seeming indecorum,” as Madison contended, in the power to increase one’s own salary. Last week four states, prompted by public outrage over the Senate’s 1991 midnight pay hike and other Capitol Hill scandals, ratified the amendment, which Madison had sought as part of what became the original Bill of Rights. While the provision does not bar pay raises outright, it would delay their execution until after the next congressional election, thus making lawmakers more accountable to voters.

But whether this proposal, first ratified by Maryland in 1789, will finally become the 27th Amendment is still uncertain. Some experts question whether it is still valid after more than two centuries. In an odd twist, Congress itself may have to determine its validity. “We all know that the wheels of government often turn slowly,” observes Republican State Senator Joseph Bubba, who sponsored the amendment in New Jersey. “But two centuries is too long to wait, even by government standards.”