Opinion ID: 675081
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The COLA

Text: 17 Mr. Boehner contends that the annual COLA provision of the Ethics Reform Act violates the twenty-seventh amendment for two (not entirely distinct) reasons: (1) it establishes a procedure that changes his salary as a congressman without a vote of the Congress; and (2) viewing each COLA as in effect a new law, each such law varies his compensation, in violation both of the constitutional requirements for lawmaking in general and of the requirements of the twenty-seventh amendment in particular. Specifically, Mr. Boehner argues that each COLA is a law subject to the requirements of Article I, namely bicameral passage and presentment to the President; and that the COLA provision of the Act circumvents the intention underlying the twenty-seventh amendment because half of all annual COLAs (i.e., those in odd-numbered years) will take effect without an intervening election and, even when an election does intervene (i.e., in even-numbered years), the electorate cannot know what the compensation of its Representatives will be in the second year of the Congress for which it votes because the second year's COLA will be based upon the ECI for the period ending on the last day of the election year. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 5318 note. 18 Neither of Mr. Boehner's arguments that the COLA provision is unconstitutional draws any support from either the original Constitution or from the twenty-seventh amendment. The Constitution does not define a law except to say (at least implicitly) that it is the product of the legislative process: 19 Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it.... If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days ..., the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it,.... 20 U.S. CONST., Art. 1, Sec. 7, cl. 2. The Ethics Reform Act became a law on November 30, 1989 when, the bill having passed both Houses and been presented to President Bush, he signed it into law. See Gardner v. The Collector, 79 U.S. 499, 504, 506 (1867). The provision calling for an annual COLA is part of that 1989 law. Cf. Pressler v. Simon, 428 F.Supp. 302 (D.D.C.1976) (three-judge court), aff'd sub nom Pressler v. Blumenthal, 434 U.S. 1028, 98 S.Ct. 758, 54 L.Ed.2d 776 (1978) (automatic increases under the Executive Salary Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 1975 fix congressional compensation by law). 21 Mr. Boehner, recognizing that in order to comply with the twenty-seventh amendment a law varying congressional compensation must be passed before an election yet the compensation may not be adjusted until after the election, argues that the phrase shall take effect in the Madison amendment must refer to the date upon which the payment of the [COLA or quadrennial] raise first occurs, not the effective date of the statute. From this Mr. Boehner would have the court infer that each COLA must be a separate law varying the compensation of the Members of Congress. Our understanding of the Madison amendment is a bit different, however; in essence it conditions the operation of a law varying congressional compensation upon an election of Representatives and the expiration of the Congress that voted for it. The law may be enacted at any time; when an election has been held the first condition is fulfilled; when the new Congress is seated the second condition is fulfilled. Therefore, the law, although duly enacted pursuant to Article I, does not take effect at the earliest until the new Congress has been seated. The minimum period between enactment and effect is from the first Monday in November of an even-numbered year (i.e., the Monday before an election) until the new Congress is seated the following January; but the interim could be greater, as long as it brackets an election. Accordingly, the present Congress could specify the salary of the next Congress or of any Congress after that. For example, the COLA provision became law in 1989 but the first COLA would not be made until more than a year later, on January 1, 1991--pursuant to the Congress's decision, prior to but in the spirit of the Madison amendment, to defer implementation of the COLA until after the 1990 congressional election. See Ethics Reform Act, Sec. 704(b) (codified at 5 U.S.C. Sec. 5318 note) (COLA provisions shall take effect on January 1, 1991). We see no reason whatsoever why the Congress cannot, for convenience, instead specify an index or formula with the same effect. 22 In sum, it has been the law since 1989 that a COLA would be made on January 1, 1991 and each year thereafter pursuant to a specified formula. Therefore, assuming with the plaintiffs (for the defendants do not dispute it) that the twenty-seventh amendment applies to a law passed before the amendment was ratified, the COLA provision of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 is constitutional because it did not cause any adjustment to congressional compensation until after the election of 1990 and the seating of the new Congress.