The 27th Amendment to the US Constitution, also known as the Madison Amendment, prevents changes to the salaries of Congress members until after the election of House of Representatives members. It was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992 after a slow process. Only five states have not ratified it.
The 27th Amendment is an amendment to the supreme law of the United States, called the United States Constitution. It prevents any changes made to the salaries of members of Congress from taking effect until the election of members of the House of Representatives, one of the two chambers that make up the bicameral legislature. Also known as the Madison Amendment, Congressional Compensation Amendment of 1789, or Congressional Retribution Amendment, the 27th Amendment is notable for being a recent amendment to the Constitution, although the concept is nearly as old as the law it amends.
The origin of the 27th amendment can be traced back to 1788, at a convention held in North Carolina to revise the original draft of the Constitution. That same year, Virginia and New York followed North Carolina in suggesting ratification of the amendment at their own conventions. James Madison, then U.S. Representative, introduced it on September 25, 1789 as one of the first 12 amendments planned for ratification, 10 of which would become the United States Bill of Rights in 1791. Congress sent the amendment to the legislatures state shortly thereafter.
Within two years of Madison’s introduction of the compensation amendment, six states — Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia — had secured formal sanction through their legislatures. About four decades later, between 1816 and 1818, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Tennessee followed suit. The ratification process of the 27th amendment, however, was ultimately very slow to achieve. This is because as the number of states grew, so did the minimum number of states required for ratification.
The US Supreme Court decision in Coleman v. Miller, 307 US 433 (1939) was a major turning point in the passage of the 27th Amendment. It establishes that state legislation with amendments proposed by Congress that lack ratification deadlines are considered pending, with Congress deciding the reasonable amount of time between the amendment’s initial proposal and state ratification. This set in motion the eventual ratification of the 27th Amendment, which was further bolstered by the state legislature’s letter-writing request from a University of Texas at Austin college student named Gregory Watson.
The 27th amendment was finally officially certified on May 18, 1992, having reached the threshold of ratification. By then, 41 states had passed the amendment. Five more states – California, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Kentucky and Washington – joined the list within the next four years. As of 2011, only five states in the union—Massacusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York and Pennsyvania—have not yet ratified the compensation amendment.
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