The 27th amendment is the most recently passed amendment. It reads:
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.
I'd like to go back and talk about this last amendment, even though we've moved on a bit from amendments. I think the story is worth telling. In the early 1980s, a student named Gregory Watson from UT Austin wrote a paper about how the 27th amendment could still be ratified due to it still being pending. James Madison had proposed the amendment in 1789, and six states ratified it. After that, it just sat. After receiving a C on the paper, Watson decided to take the issue on himself. He wrote letters to state politicians, and over time, many states picked the amendment up and ratified it. Eventually, 38 states ratified it and it became an amendment.
I think that this is more than a cool story- it also shows an interesting feature of proposed amendments. They don't really have an "expiration date," and after being proposed can sit idly for hundreds of years.
Source
This is actually really cool! I think this is an interesting addition to the other ways to amend the constitution that we learned,and somewhat reminds me of the speaker of the house. They can constantly put what they don't want to talk about at the bottom of the agenda, just like how if states don't want it ratified, they can just sit on the amendment until public opinion changes. I think it is also amazing that this was done by a college student, who wanted to prove that he was correct. Where did you find this story?
ReplyDelete