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Emoluments, schmoluments

By bioephemera on December 10, 2008.

Word of the day: emoluments.

The House appears to have just addressed Hillary's emoluments problem, by passing S.J. Res 46 "ensuring that the compensation and other emoluments attached to the office of Secretary of State are those which were in effect on January 1, 2007." This undoes a 2008 cost-of-living increase of $4,700 in the salary of the Secretary of State, enacted when Hillary Clinton was a Senator. I think it already passed the Senate, so now it just needs to be signed by the President.

For those of you who haven't been following this story, there's an interesting constitutional law snag with HRC's Sec State nomination, described in great detail here, here and here. Briefly, Article I, Section 6 says "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time...." Read strictly, the 2008 increase in the SecState's salary (emoluments) would prevent Hillary, a Senator at the time, from taking the job. I can understand that the framers wanted to prevent Congressional leaders from attaching lots of perks to Cabinet positions, then immediately taking those positions and perks for themselves. But a $4,700 cost of living raise? Meh. I'm hardly scandalized.

The emoluments clause problem hasn't really been fixed by S.J. Res 46, but similar maneuvers opened the door to William Saxbe as Attorney General and Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury Secretary in the past, so it's probably good enough for government work. Literally.

Via the House Floor Twitter Feed

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Frivolity

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