Many members of Congress could be entitled to back-pay after years of denying themselves automatic cost-of-living adjustments.
Congressional salaries were set at $174,000 in 2009, and every year since then Congress has voted against allowing an automatic adjustment for inflation, worried about the political ramifications of giving themselves a raise.
A small, bipartisan group of current and former lawmakers filed suit, arguing that those repeated votes to freeze their pay violated the Constitution. In a preliminary ruling filed last week, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Eric Bruggink agreed, writing that the votes effectively reduce lawmakers’ compensation in violation of the 27th Amendment's prohibition on changing congressional pay until an intervening election has occurred.
Lawmakers have long clashed over their pay, with some arguing that congressional salaries need to be raised to better attract lawmakers from all walks of life and compete with private sector opportunities.
As Politico reports, House Speaker Mike Johnson noted last year that a member of Congress today is making 31% less than one in 2009, after adjusting for inflation. “Over time, if you stay on this trajectory, you’re going to have less qualified people who are willing to make the extreme sacrifice to run for Congress,” Johnson said at the time.
The impact of the judge’s preliminary ruling is far from clear, with litigation reportedly likely to continue for months, and maybe even years. “There’s some irony in the idea that maybe what’s going to finally make this happen is Congress turning to an entire other branch of the government to do something that they themselves could choose to do, and in fact have decided not to,” Molly Reynolds, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institute think tank, told Politico.
Ultimately, though, some plaintiffs in the case could be eligible for big checks. For example, veteran Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, who has served since the cost-of-living-adjustments law took effect, could be owed close to $420,000.