The People’s Constitution: 200 Years, 27 Amendments, and the Promise of a More Perfect Union by John F. Kowal

Author:John F. Kowal [Kowal, John F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Law, Constitutional, History, United States, General, Legal History, Philosophy, Political, Political Science, Constitutions, Political Process, Political Advocacy
ISBN: 9781620975626
Google: z6DLDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0843NNWNS
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2021-09-21T05:00:00+00:00

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment: Madison’s Final Revision

In 1982, Gregory Watson had a term paper to write. At first, he planned to explore whether Congress properly exercised its power when it extended the ratification deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment. But as he pored over books in the local public library, Watson stumbled upon a more intriguing topic.53 “I’ll never forget this as long as I live,” he says. “I pull out a book that has within it a chapter of amendments that Congress has sent to the state legislatures, but which not enough state legislatures approved in order to become part of the Constitution. And this one jumped right out at me.”54

The would-be addition to the Constitution that caught the young student’s eye was adopted by the 1st Congress in 1789, transmitted to the states as the second of twelve amendments included in the original Bill of Rights. Intended as protection against legislative self-dealing, the measure provided that pay raises for members of Congress may take effect only after the next election. James Madison, the proposal’s author, questioned its necessity, and only a few states ratified it at first. After ten of Congress’s twelve amendments were adopted in 1791, the measure languished, all but forgotten.55

Because Congress never imposed an expiration date, Watson argued in his paper that the Congressional Pay Amendment could and should be ratified. To his dismay, his teacher gave him a C for his effort. “I was very disappointed given how much tender love and care I had put into the paper,” Watson recalls. But the setback ignited a personal obsession: “I thought right then and there, ‘I’m going to get that thing ratified.’”56 Over many months, Watson sent letters to politicians of both parties, looking for legislative champions. Most ignored him until William Cohen, a Republican senator from Maine, passed the idea along to lawmakers in his state. To Watson’s delight, Maine ratified the amendment in April 1983. Encouraged by this first success, he redoubled his efforts. Apart from his studies, and a job as a legislative aide, Watson “would eat, drink, sleep, and breath[e] the ratification of the amendment all seven days of the week,” painstakingly drafting appeals to lawmakers on his IBM Selectric typewriter.57 He estimated he spent $5,000 of his own money on stationery and postage to advance the effort.58

Over the next nine years, Watson’s one-man advocacy campaign secured a steady stream of additional ratifications. “I got a lot of help, interestingly enough, from Congress,” he recalls.59 Controversial pay raises and a succession of financial scandals stoked a grassroots desire to send Washington a message. By the turn of the decade, as the tally of ratifications neared the two-thirds threshold, a group of upstart GOP House freshmen muscled into the act. Led by their class president, the future Speaker of the House John Boehner, they introduced a resolution in Congress urging states to ratify the amendment as their “class project.” Watson resented Boehner for “snatching undeserved credit” for his idea.60 Nevertheless, on May 7,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.