BIBLE LAW VS. THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION:
The Christian Perspective

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Chapter 36
Amendment 27
: Superfluous Legislative Regulations

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Section 1

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 text of Amendment 27 was submitted to the states as part of the proposed Bill of Rights on September 25, 1789. It took almost 203 years for it to finally be ratified on May 7, 1992:

When James Madison submitted his proposals for a Bill of Rights in 1789, he included a provision that prevented members of Congress from voting themselves a pay raise before the voters had a chance to kick them out of office for doing so. This amendment was approved as one of the twelve amendments submitted to the states on September 25, 1789. Only ten of these were ratified in 1791, and they became known as the Bill of Rights because they mainly protected individual rights. However, Congress had not established an official time limit for ratification of the 1789 amendments. During the 1980s, more and more states ratified the amendment limiting congressional pay raises, and it became the Twenty-seventh Amendment in 1992 – the longest ratification in U.S. history.1

The Twenty-seventh Amendment provides that any change in Congressional salaries may only take effect after the beginning of the next term of office for Representatives. Sometimes called the “Congressional Compensation Amendment of 1789,” the “Congressional Pay Amendment,” and the “Madison Amendment,” it was intended to serve as a restraint on the power of Congress to set its own salary – an obvious potential for conflict of interest.2

Since its 1992 adoption, however, this amendment has not hindered members of congress from receiving nearly annual pay raises, characterized as “cost-of-living adjustments” (COLAs), rather than as pay raises in the traditional sense of the term. The United States Supreme Court has refused certiorari for a lawsuit challenging Congress’s COLAs as unconstitutional, stating that the citizens bringing the lawsuit had no legal standing for bringing the lawsuit, as they had not proved they were personally harmed by the COLAs. Hence, members of Congress have been able to obtain increases in compensation without triggering the restrictions which this amendment seeks to impose. It should be pointed out that it is Congress that determines whether federal judges will receive an increase in their salaries…. Additionally, retirement benefits of federal judges are linked with those of members of Congress.3

The last paragraph only goes to demonstrate the good ol’ boys club that exists among all three branches of the constitutional Republic.

Amendment 27 is the most recent amendment to the Constitution. In all likelihood, more amendments will be added in the future, because, unlike Yahweh’s immutable, everlasting standard, WE THE PEOPLE’s morality (or lack thereof) is capricious and ever-changing.

In the last 222 years (1789 to 2011), the Constitution has been amended, on average, every 8.2 years. Because eighteen years have passed since the ratification of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, the Constitution is overdue for amendment. Amendment will occur again, unless the subjects of the KING of kings recognize and repent of their national idolatry and dispose of the entire document, replacing it with Yahweh’s perfect laws and altogether righteous judgments.

Because the positions of Senators and Representatives are themselves unbiblical, the additional regulations found in Amendment 27 are extraneous. See Chapter 4 “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” for more regarding these superfluous positions of leadership.


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End Notes

1. Linda Monk, The Words We Live By, <http://72.32.50.200/constitution/details_explanation.php?link=224&const=34_amd_27>.

2. “Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution>.

3. “Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution> (3/21/2008).


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