Dear Straight Dope:
What's up with the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, the one about congressional salaries? Why did it take more than 200 years to ratify? What did the states that didn't ratify it way back when have against it? And what does it mean to me now? While we're on the subject, when an amendment is added to the Constitution, does someone literally amend the Constitution? I assume they don't really write it at the bottom of the original document, but does anyone trace it out in that fancy calligraphy on another sheet and stick it under the original Constitution (no stapling, though) over at the National Archives? --Juan Gonzale
SDSTAFF Gfactor replies:
Let's start with the easy part. Section 106b of Title 1 of the United States Code says:
Whenever official notice is received at the National Archives and Records Administration that any amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States has been adopted, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the Archivist of the United States shall forthwith cause the amendment to be published, with his certificate, specifying the States by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States.
So the National Archivist must publish the amendment with a certificate that gives the particulars of adoption. The National Archivist did exactly that with the 27th Amendment. The National Archivist is also required to publish constitutional amendments in a book called Statutes at Large, according to 1 U.S.C. §112.
If you want to see the 27th in its original form, though, take a look at the Bill of Rights in high resolution on the National Archives site. As you know, it was the second article in that document. It 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.
The amendment prevents Congress from raising its current pay--increases can only take effect after an election of Representatives, at which time the voters will have a chance to register their approval or disgust. According to Richard Bernstein, writing in the Fordham Law Review, the clause was meant to amend Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, which says, "The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States."
The reason the latter clause is in there is a story in itself. Delegates to the Continental Congresses had been paid by the state legislatures that sent them. There were problems with this practice, according to Bernstein.
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