27th Amendment
Twenty-Seventh Amendment
Ratified May 7, 1992
Verbatim
Exact text as ratified.
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
Plain English
A translation that drops archaic words but keeps the meaning, including the parts courts still argue about.
No law that changes the pay of senators or representatives can take effect until after the next election for the House of Representatives.
About
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment has the most unusual ratification history of any amendment in the Constitution. It was proposed by James Madison in 1789 as part of the original group of amendments that became the Bill of Rights. It was not ratified at the time and sat dormant for nearly 200 years. In 1982, a University of Texas student named Gregory Watson wrote a paper arguing the amendment could still be ratified. He received a C on the paper and started a campaign to get it ratified. The amendment was finally ratified on May 7, 1992 — 202 years and 7 months after it was first proposed, the longest ratification period of any amendment.
The amendment's effect is modest: Congress can still raise its own pay, but the raise cannot take effect until after the next House election, giving voters a chance to vote out members who voted for the increase. The amendment does not apply to cost-of-living adjustments, which are governed by separate legislation that pre-dates the amendment.