The Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Freaking Constitution.
After the Constitution was passed, James Madison yelled at the other Federalists until they agreed that yeah, we promised we’d add a bill of rights to get New York on board, maybe we should get on that. They proposed twelve amendments. Ten passed.
Proposed amendment number two was one of the boring ones. What it says is that when Congress passes a law changing its pay, that can’t go into effect until after the next election. A good rule to have, but not exactly earth-shakingly important. There were thirteen states, and only seven voted for it, so it didn’t pass. (Um, amendments need three quarters. They weren’t just that bad at counting.)
Pause.
Like, a lot of pause.
Cut to 1992, and it gets its thirty-eighth ratification, making it the law of the land.
(Actually it was the thirty-ninth. Kentucky had ratified it in 1792, but everyone forgot.)
What happened in between? Well, a couple of states ratified the amendment as a pointless expression of We Are Very Angry At Congress. (Which is, like, the default state of being for state legislatures and American citizens in general, so I don’t know how it didn’t pass in the first place faster than you could say “opposite of progress.”) But mostly it was a ten-year campaign started by some guy in Texas who wrote a paper on it for law school.
He got a C. Something about “unrealistic.” And now he’s personally responsible for getting an amendment added to the U.S. Constitution by sheer force of rules-lawyering.
(Not even regular-lawyering! He did it by writing a bunch of letters about his favorite piece of trivia!)Anyway, 1992 was also the year Congress passed a Cost of Living Adjustment act. Couldn’t take effect until ‘94, of course, but now their pay goes up automatically unless they suspend it. Gotta respect ‘em; they know this loophole business too.
Tags:
#this is beautiful #it probably shouldn’t be beautiful but it is #home of the brave #fun with loopholes
Brinens and Things 