Amendment 27 — Congressional pay

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1992 amendment delaying congressional salary changes

The Twenty-seventh Amendment ( Amendment XXVII, also known as the Congressional Pay Amendment or the Congressional Compensation Act of 1789)[1] to the United States Constitution states that any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of Congress may take effect only after the next election of the House of Representatives has occurred. It is the most recently adopted amendment but was one of the first proposed.

The 1st Congress submitted the amendment to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789, along with 11 other proposed amendments ( Articles I–XII). The last ten Articles were ratified in 1791 to become the Bill of Rights, but the first two, the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the proposed Congressional Apportionment Amendment, were not ratified by enough states to come into force with them.

The proposed congressional pay amendment was largely forgotten until 1982, when Gregory Watson, a 19-year-old student at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a paper for a government class in which he claimed that the amendment could still be ratified. He later launched a nationwide campaign to complete its ratification.[2][3] The amendment eventually became part of the United States Constitution, effective May 5, 1992.[4]

The idea behind this amendment is to reduce corruption in the legislative branch by requiring an election before a congressperson's salary increase takes effect. The public can thus remove members of Congress from office before their salaries increase.[5] It is unclear whether the amendment has produced any change in congressional behavior.[6] An unintended consequence of the amendment is that, unlike executive branch employees or Congressional staff, all members of Congress continue to get paid during a shutdown. The interpretation of a cease in pay for cease of work as a decrease in salary, which is prohibited by the amendment, has not been ruled upon.[7][8]

Ratification by the states

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Ratified amendment, 1789–1792

Ratified amendment, 1873–1978

Ratified amendment, 1983–1991

Ratified amendment, May 19921

Ratified post-enactment, 1992–present

Ratified twice (NC: 1789 and 1989; KY: 1792 and 1996)

Have not ratified amendment

1The Archivist did not certify the amendment until May 18, 1992, with 40 states listed as ratifying the amendment. Kentucky's then-unknown 1792 ratification would have made it 41 states that had ratified at the time of certification, three more than the 38 required for a three-quarters majority.

The following states ratified the Twenty-seventh Amendment:

1. Maryland – December 19, 1789
2. North Carolina – December 22, 1789 (Reaffirmed on July 4, 1989)[30]
3. South Carolina – January 19, 1790
4. Delaware – January 28, 1790
5. Vermont – November 3, 1791
6. Virginia – December 15, 1791
7. Kentucky – June 27, 1792[31] (Reaffirmed on March 21, 1996)
8. Ohio – May 6, 1873
9. Wyoming – March 6, 1978
10. Maine – April 27, 1983
11. Colorado – April 22, 1984
12. South Dakota – February 21, 1985
13. New Hampshire – March 7, 1985 (After rejection on January 26, 1790)[32]
14. Arizona – April 3, 1985
15. Tennessee – May 28, 1985
16. Oklahoma – July 1, 1985
17. New Mexico – February 14, 1986
18. Indiana – February 24, 1986
19. Utah – February 25, 1986
20. Arkansas – March 13, 1987
21. Montana – March 17, 1987
22. Connecticut – May 13, 1987
23. Wisconsin – July 15, 1987
24. Georgia – February 2, 1988
25. West Virginia – March 10, 1988
26. Louisiana – July 7, 1988
27. Iowa – February 9, 1989
28. Idaho – March 23, 1989
29. Nevada – April 26, 1989
30. Alaska – May 6, 1989
31. Oregon – May 19, 1989
32. Minnesota – May 22, 1989
33. Texas – May 25, 1989
34. Kansas – April 5, 1990
35. Florida – May 31, 1990
36. North Dakota – March 25, 1991
37. Missouri – May 5, 1992
38. Alabama – May 5, 1992
39. Michigan – May 7, 1992

On May 18, 1992, the Archivist of the United States, Don W. Wilson, certified that the amendment's ratification had been completed.[33][34] Michigan's May 7, 1992, ratification was believed to be the 38th state, but it later came to light that the Kentucky General Assembly had ratified the amendment during that state's initial month of statehood,[31] making Alabama (which acted after Missouri on May 5, 1992) the state to finalize the amendment's addition to the Constitution.[35][4]

The amendment was subsequently ratified by:

2. New Jersey – May 7, 1992 (After rejection on November 20, 1789)[[32]](https://en.wikipedia.