Know Your Bill of Rights

December 15, 2011 marked the 220th anniversary of our Bill of Rights. As usual, it passed without much fanfare, yet it’s been protecting American rights for more than two centuries. The Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution--our nation’s primary legal document--and they are law.

As Americans, we expect our government to honor our rights. Unfortunately, our schools do a poor job of preparing students to be responsible citizens. Most Americans are confused about exactly what rights we have, and have never read the Bill of Rights.

Our founders prepared the Constitution in 1787. It became law in 1789, after the states ratified it. The amendments are simply changes or additions to the original text. While the Constitution permits amendment by a complicated process involving state conventions, all of our amendments came about through the more streamlined method of Congressional proposals and state legislature ratifications. The most recent amendment, the 27th, passed in 1992. The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Some of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were concerned about British violations of civil rights before and during the revolution. They wanted our Constitution to contain a specific list of our rights. Other delegates thought it was unnecessary. Due to political maneuvers, the states ratified the Constitution without that list. However, the first US Congress presented 12 proposals to the states on September 25, 1789. Two of those proposals were defeated. The states ratified the remaining ten, which became our Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791.

Here they are:

First Amendment - protects people with different or unpopular ideas by protecting our freedoms of speech, press, religion, peaceful assembly, and to petition the government.

Second Amendment – protects our rights to own guns and to maintain a militia.

Third Amendment – prohibits the government from forcibly housing soldiers in our homes.

Fourth Amendment – requires that the police must have a warrant issued by a court before they can search us, or our homes, or take our property.

Fifth Amendment – lists our rights to proper procedure when arrested for a crime, prohibits self-incrimination and double jeopardy, and requires compensation for property seized through eminent domain.

Sixth Amendment – protects our right to trial by a jury and other rights when accused of crimes.

Seventh Amendment – protects our rights in civil trials and in appeals to higher courts.

Eighth Amendment – protects us from excessive bail and fines, and from cruel and unusual punishments.

Ninth Amendment – protects rights that are not specifically included in the Constitution.

Tenth Amendment – protects powers of the states and the people.

Six other important amendments protect our rights:

• Thirteenth Amendment (1865) – abolished slavery.
• Fourteenth Amendment (1868) – requires the states to guarantee equal protection of the law to everyone.
• Fifteenth Amendment (1870) – guarantees the right to vote regardless of race.
• Nineteenth Amendment (1920) – guarantees women’s right to vote.
• Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964) – abolished poll taxes and guarantees the right to vote even if you haven’t paid your taxes.
• Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971) – guarantees the right to vote to citizens age 18 and older.

So what can ordinary people do when the government violates these rights? The American Civil Liberties Union has defended our rights since 1920. With more than 500,000 members and supporters, the ACLU insists that the government respect civil liberties, even in times of national emergency. After all, it’s easy to honor public rights when times are comfortable. It’s when times are difficult that it really matters.

What has the ACLU done for you? In 2008, after the ACLU intervened, the US Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to allow the families of deceased service members to place religious symbols on headstones in federal cemeteries. The group has vigorously defended Occupy protesters’ first amendment rights to free speech, press, petition, and assembly. Since 2001, the ACLU has led the fight against government violations of the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments through the “Patriot” and Military Commissions Acts and is now fighting the newly passed National Defense Authorization Act. Since the 2008 presidential election campaign, the ACLU has been fighting government efforts to prevent millions of citizens from voting in dozens of states. Those violations directly affect your rights and freedoms.

You can help yourself. Learn about your rights. Be alert. If your rights are violated, contact the ACLU. You can help others. Contact your legislators and President Obama. Insist that they act to repeal unconstitutional laws and to protect our rights.

For more information

Read the Bill of Rights


American Civil Liberties Union

Bill of Rights Institute

U.S. Government’s Web Portal

Contact Elected Officials

Why We Need More Lobbyists

How many times have you clicked a box to add your name to one of those “Make the world a better place. Sign our petition now” email links? Congratulations. You are a lobbyist. Have you ever accepted one whose purpose was to eliminate lobbyists? Congratulations. You are confused.
It’s become fashionable to gripe about lobbying and lobbyists as somehow evil, corrupt, and “un-American”. Trolls and pundits want to storm the castle with torches and pitchforks, demanding their obliteration. Actually, there is nothing more American than a good, old-fashioned lobbyist.

The American founders wanted lobbyists. They expected them. Our own Declaration of Independence says:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,…
Lobbying was so important to them that they enshrined it in the First Amendment in our Bill of Rights - Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the . . . right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Constitution requires that House of Representatives members face election every two years because that makes them more accountable to the people. The president and all members of Congress maintain websites with contact information and email forms to give them your comments and opinions. This stuff doesn’t exist purely for decoration.

There have been lobbyists as long as there have been legislators. The term arose in the United States in the 1830s when representatives of large companies and organizations gathered in the lobby of the US Capitol Building to try to persuade legislators to vote for or against pending legislation. The business has come a long way. Now there are huge firms of professional lobbyists working for and against every issue under the sun.

Of course, the giant megabucks corporations and organizations employ professional lobbyists – oil companies, Wall Street banksters, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association. But plenty of organizations working for the public interest do, too – the American Civil Liberties Union, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the AFL-CIO.

The federal Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 contains very strict rules about professional lobbying. All state legislatures also have similar rules. I’ve been lobbying for more than 30 years, at all levels of government. I’ve never given more than a stack of papers and a handshake to any legislator. And not one has ever asked for more.

Lobbyists are no different from members of any other profession. Some are more competent than others. Some are more ethical than others. Some are terrific. Some are swine. Of course we need limits on the gifts that lobbyists can give to legislators. We need a strict definition of and strong punishments for bribery. But we do not need fewer lobbyists. We need more of them.

If the NINETY-NINE PERCENT would do more lobbying, then the lobbyists for the one percent would have less power.

Without lobbyists, we wouldn’t have • Civil Rights Act• Voting Rights Act• drunk driving laws• workplace wage, health, and safety laws• child labor laws
• environmental protection
• safe and healthy food, drugs, air, and water
• social services
• services for military families and veterans
• Social Security
• Consumer protection laws

But we would have
• Slavery
• Legal sweatshops
• Jim Crow Laws
• Many more poor, hungry, homeless, sick, injured, and dead people

Thousands of bills are introduced in Congress every year. Only a few dozen become laws. Nothing moves unless someone pushes it. While you probably won’t be paid for it, you can be a lobbyist, too. There are two simple steps:

• You know what’s important to you. Be familiar with those issues. You don’t have to be an expert. Just follow the news, search online for organizations working on your topic, and then participate with an organization, or more.

• Contact your legislators. Let them know how you feel, and how you want them to vote.
You have every right to contact your legislators as often as you like, about any topic you choose, and it does make a difference. To have even more clout, gather some friends or join an organization and visit your legislators in their district offices.

Since Congress does most of its work through committees, you should know which committees oversee your issues. Committees are very powerful in Congress. The House and Senate websites contain lists of committees and their members.

So if you think our government is on the wrong track, don’t blame the government, or the people who do their part to make it work. Stop watching stupid junk on TV and START LOBBYING.

For More Information
Learn how to lobby your legislators
Why Congress Can’t Get Anything Done. And What You Can Do About It
Guide to the Lobbying Disclosure Act

Tales Exaggerate Congressional Pay and Pensions

As long as I can remember, there has been a vague general rumbling that members of Congress collect exorbitant salaries and outrageous pensions and other benefits. The rumblings have changed form over the years, from idle gossip to organized viral email campaigns, but the substance remains. Despite efforts to spread the truth, many Americans still contend that members of Congress take home truckloads of money, don’t participate in Social Security, and get full pay for their lifetimes after serving only a single term in Congress. Sorry, folks, it just isn’t true.


From 1789 to 1855, members earned just $6.00 for each day spent in Congressional legislative session. That would total $966 for House members and $924 for Senators for the 2011 calendar to date.

In 1855, Congress adopted an annual salary of $3,000. Raises came sporadically over the years, until the pay reached the current $174,000 in 2009. From that salary, they have to pay for two residences –one in their home districts and one in the Washington area.

Senate Majority and Minority Leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell and their House counterparts Nancy Pelosi and Eric Cantor make $193,400. Speaker of the House John Boehner earns $223,500.

Congress passed the 27thConstitutional Amendment in 1789, but it wasn’t ratified until 1992. It states that Congress may vote itself a pay raise, but cannot accept that raise until after the next Congressional election. That gives the voters a chance to vote them out of office.

Since 1989, a cost of living adjustment raises pay automatically unless Congress votes not to implement it. The COLA is constitutional because it became law before the states ratified the 27thamendment. The Constitution prohibits Congress from passing ex post facto laws (Article I, Section 9, Clause 3). The law permits Congress to forgo its raise if the members choose to do so. Congress has not taken its raise since January, 2009.

Part of the griping alludes to the notion that Congress is the only group of people who can raise their own salaries. But if it were up to the voters, today’s members would still be making $6.00 a day. While “regular people” can’t give themselves a raise, corporate boards and officers routinely do so.

The current Congressional salary of $174,000 is almost five times the average American worker’s annual income of $33,272.20. The typical American corporate CEO made $9.25 million in salary, bonuses, and stock options in 2009. That’s 278 times the average worker’s pay.

No federal government employee, including members of Congress, participated in Social Security until 1984.They had their own retirement fund called the Civil Service Retirement System. In 1983, Congress amended the Social Security Act (P.L. 98-21), requiring all federal employees, including members of Congress, to participate in the Social Security Program and created a new, optional, retirement fund called the Federal Employee Retirement System. Members of Congress are eligible to participate in FERS.

Now, every person who tells you that members of Congress collect their full paychecks for life after serving only a single term in Congress is an absolute liar. Like most pensions, FERS is financed through a combination of employee and employer contributions. Also like private pension plans, benefits are calculated through a formula that considers both length of service and age at retirement.
According to a 2007 Congressional Research Service report:Under both CSRS and FERS, Members of Congress are eligible for a pension at age 62 if they have completed at least five years of service. Members are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after completing 25 years of service. The amount of the pension depends on years of service and the average of the highest three years of salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member’s retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.

The corollary to the outrageous pay canard is the delusion that members of Congress don’t bother to work for a living. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have been a public policy advocate and lobbyist for nearly 30 years. I have worked with members of Congress, their staffs, and Congressional committees. Regardless of my opinion of their politics, I can tell you that the vast majority of both elected representatives and staff members work harder than just about any other category of worker.

Membership in Congress is not a nine-to-five job. Congress only meets in legislative session about 100 days each year, but members spend much more time than that in committee meetings, hearings, staff and constituent meetings; reading bills, briefing materials, and correspondence; and making endless phone calls. And when they return to their home districts, they add functions, events, and town hall meetings to that list. And no matter where they go, someone is always grabbing their arms asking for “just a minute” of their time.
$174,000 is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a good living, but it’s not a fortune. I certainly wouldn’t want the job.


For more information:
Congressional Research Service: Congressional Salaries and Benefits, June 2011
Congressional Research Service: Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress, January 2011 
Pay and Perquisites of Members of Congress, Including A History of House and Senate Salaries
U.S House of Representatives
U.S. Senate