How did a paper written for an undergraduate government course that received a grade of "C" lead to the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution?
A man named Gregory Watson would say it's elementary: getting involved at the grassroots level, staying determined, and exhibiting patience.
Origin Story
In a case of the first shall be last (for now), the language of what would become the Twenty-seventh Amendment was among the initial set of amendments introduced in the House of Representatives by James Madison and subsequently sent to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pay of members of the U.S. Congress was on the minds of those who served in the 1st Congress. The proposed amendment in question read as follows:
"No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened."
In other words, dear representatives, no more soup for you until the next election of the House!
While ten of the initial amendments that had been sent to the states were quickly ratified (we know them as the Bill of Rights), the amendment regarding congressional pay did not gain enough traction to be added.
Kentucky became the seventh state to ratify it in 1792. No other state ratified it until 1873, when the Ohio General Assembly approved the amendment as a means of officially protesting a midterm pay raise that Congress had voted itself, popularly known as "The Salary Grab Act."
The amendment lay dormant until the Wyoming legislature ratified it in 1978. In neither case did ratification spark any kind of popular movement to add the amendment to the Constitution.
Researching the ERA and a New Direction
Enter University of Texas-Austin undergraduate Gregory Watson.
For a paper he was writing in a government class in the spring of 1982, Watson was examining the procedural controversy associated with the unprecedented deadline extension that Congress had granted for the ratification of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
Watson wondered if Congress had the authority to conduct such a move. As he searched for the answer, he found a book containing a chapter that detailed proposed amendments to the Constitution that were never ratified by the states
He switched gears immediately. Watson decided to instead write about the congressional pay amendment. He had already learned about the decision in the Supreme Court case Coleman v. Miller in which it was determined that Congress is "the ultimate authority...in the exercise of its control over the promulgation of the amendment."
In his paper, Watson argued that the amendment was still pending before the states, and that the amendment's ratification was necessary due in part to a December 1981 tax break that Congress had given itself via classifying the representatives of the people as a special class of taxpayers. Watson argued that the classification was a gross abuse of power.
Watson proudly turned his paper in with high hopes, but was disappointed when the teaching assistant in the class marked it with a middling "C." An appeal to the professor of the class went begging. Watson decided that he would personally see to it that the amendment was ratified.
Grassroots Effort
The undaunted 20-year old sophomore got to work. He began a letter-writing campaign to state legislatures and various U.S. representatives and senators that outlined the situation and the need for the amendment. Then-U.S. senator William S. Cohen of Maine was receptive and helped put Watson in touch with individuals in the Maine legislature who could be of assistance. As a result of Watson establishing connections with those people and convincing them of the need for the amendment, Maine ratified it in 1983.
Watson continued his mailing work. He targeted particular state legislatures that seemed to him favorable to ratifying the amendment and legislators who were willing to file the resolution and back it. Colorado ratified the amendment in 1984.
Persistence is probably too weak of a word to apply to Watson's ethic. All of his correspondence was conducted via snail mail. He did not have the means to travel all over the country and meet with state legislators in person, nor run up long-distance telephone bills. At this point in history, email and the Internet were merely gleams in Al Gore's eyes.
Momentum continued to build when events in Congress brought attention to Watson's cause. This was particularly the case in 1987. At that time, a mechanism was in place to automatically give members of Congress a pay raise unless it was declined by vote within a narrow timeframe.
Then-Speaker Jim Wright held the vote, but did so after the deadline, which allowed members of Congress to make a parade of voting against a raise while simultaneously enjoying the automatic increase in pay. Public disgust with this grandstanding helped move more state legislatures to consider and ratify the amendment for which Watson was so strenuously working
Watson's determination never wavered, even when on a couple of occasions the amendment failed to pass in the North Dakota legislature by a single vote. He continued to persuade legislators by mail and eventually North Dakota ratified the amendment in 1991.
Ratification
Finally, after the requisite number of states had ratified it on May 7, Congress -- acting under the authority given to it in Coleman -- passed a concurrent resolution that acknowledged that the Twenty-seventh Amendment had been ratified validly.
Over a decade had passed since Watson turned in his paper to the teaching assistant at UT-Austin.
As Watson said when asked by national treasure Brian Lamb in the hour-long interview that can be watched below about the impact that his role in amending the Constitution made in his life, he simply replied "I've been able to make a dent in the world."
Happily, 35 years after receiving a "C" on his paper about the need for what would become the Twenty-seventh Amendment, Watson's overall grade for the class was raised to an "A."
He earned it.
The addition of the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution demonstrates the power of the grassroots to make a dent in the world -- no matter how long it might take and no matter what obstacles lie in the path.
To join the effort to call an Article V convention and make a gigantic dent in the power of the federal government, sign the petition below:
