Compensation of Officials

The U.S. Constitution addresses compensation for the members of Congress in Article I, section 6: “The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States” (see House of Representatives; Senate). Members of Congress are currently paid an annual salary of $169,300; in addition, they receive allowances for offices, staff, and travel. The salary of the speaker of the house is $217,400, and other officers receive compensation over and above their base salary. House majority and minority political party leaders, for example, are paid $188,100.

The Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), originally proposed with the first amendments that became the Bill of Rights in 1791, adds a limitation on when these salaries can be raised: “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” The obvious purpose of this amendment is to give citizens a way to voice their approval or disapproval of any salary increase that representatives and senators award themselves—at the polls: legislators not returned to office cannot benefit from the increase. Congress has recently taken to awarding itself automatic cost-of-living increases that do not require passage of any “law,” thus skirting the amendment’s intent.

The Constitution also directly provides for compensation for the president of the United States. According to Article II, section 1, “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument [payment for services rendered] from the United States, or any of them.” This provision insulates the president from action by Congress to either punish the chief executive or link his actions to the possibility of a reward. “The legislature, on the appointment of a President, is once for all to declare what shall be the compensation for his services during the time for which he shall have been [Page 108] elected,” as Alexander Hamilton explains in essay 73 of The Federalist (1787–88) (see Federalist Papers). “This done, they will have no power to alter it,…[and therefore] [t]hey can neither weaken his fortitude by operating on his necessities, nor corrupt his integrity by appealing to his avarice.” The president’s salary was raised from $200,000 per year during the administration of President Bill Clinton, which ended in 2000, to $400,000 per year beginning with President George W. Bush, who took office in 2001.

...