Is 'No Budget, No Pay' Unconstitutional?

The House of Representatives approved Wednesday, 285-144, a three-month extension of the debt limit. Included in that bill was a "no budget, no pay" provision, which requires members of Congress to pass a budget, or they will not receive a salary. Some of the lawmakers who voted against the bill say that the "no budget, no pay" provision violates the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The 27th Amendment 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." This amendment essentially says that if Congress changes its salary, or any other parts of its compensation, those changes will not go into effect until after the next election. Since the "no budget, no pay" law would change the compensation for lawmakers, by making it $0, it would violate this amendment, opponents claim.

"The American people rightfully expect Congress to do its job, and that includes passing a budget." Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said in a Wednesday statement. "However, while I support the concept of the 'No Budget, No Pay' bill, the 27th Amendment to our Constitution specifically says 'No law, varying the compensation for services of Senators and Representatives, shall take effect' until after an intervening election. The language is clear and unambiguous. I support the spirit of the bill, but it did not meet constitutional standards.

"Each member takes their own oath of fidelity to the Constitution, and I respect the view of my colleagues who disagree. In order to keep my oath to the Constitution, my only choice was to vote no."

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told Fox News Monday that he would vote against the bill for the same reason. "I understand the sentiment behind 'no budget, no pay ... that said ... it appears that the 27th Amendment does not permit Congress to alter its pay in the midst of a current session," Jeffries said.

The 27th Amendment, authored by James Madison, was one of the first 12 amendments proposed by the 1st Congress. Ten of those amendments were ratified shortly after by the original 13 states. Those 10 amendments became known as the Bill of Rights.

In 1982, Gregory Watson wrote a paper about the amendment for his American government class at the University of Texas at Austin. Though he received a "C" on the paper, Watson decided the amendment should be ratified and began a personal quest to get enough states to ratify it so that it would be added to the Constitution.

Ten years later, in 1992, Watson succeeded. Madison's previously forgotten amendment was added to the Constitution. It was the last time the Constitution was amended

First, there is no constitutional provision that a budget be produced. That is a matter of law passed by Congress in a constitutional manner.

There is a constitutional provision that legislators be compensated. As Marlowe points out, the House desires a law that defines the conditions that must be met in order to receive that compensation. In other words, merely being elected doesn’t entitle them to the compensation, but doing the job does. And not doing a particular, legally based part of the job will have that pay withheld.

Thanks for your comment xzins.

Regarding the constitutionality of this issue, I am in error concerning my knee-jerk comment about the title of this thread, the “no pay” part, as apposed to basing my comment on what the bill(?) actually says, which I haven’t read. Assuming peacetime “part time” duties with respect to administering Congress’s constitutionally-limited powers, the Constitution guarantees lawmakers compensation for their services (1.6.2).

But my main concern about this thread is that the pay issue is nothing more than an unprofessional publicitiy stunt, imo, likely meant to impress voters who are probably mostly Constitution-ignorant.

I will note an important thing about the federal budget which I have mentioned in related threads. Justice John Marshall had taken the Founding States' division of federal and state government powers a major leap forward, imo, when he officially clarified Congress's limited power to lay taxes.

More specifically, Justice Marhall had clarifed that Congress is prohibited from laying takes in the name of state power issues, issues which Congress cannot justify under the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I, or other constitutionally express expenses.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

Here is my rough estimate of how much Congress's Article I, Section 8-limited powers should be costing taxpayers per year. Given that the plurality of clauses in Section 8 are defense related, and given that Department of Defense (DoD) budget for 2011 was $600+ billion, I will generously round up the DoD annual budget to $1 trillion, but probably much less, as an estimate of how much taxpayers should be paying Congress annually to fulfil its Section 8 duties.

In other words, we should not be hearing about multi-trillion dollar annual budgets that Obama guard dog Fx News and other pro-Obama "news" media are reporting in federal public policy discussions without mentioning Justice Marshall's clarification of Congress's limited power to lay taxes.

So Congress's "No budget, no pay" stunt beautifully sidesteps Congress's Section 8-limited powers imo.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.