[{"command":"add_css","data":[{"rel":"stylesheet","media":"all","href":"\/sites\/default\/files\/css\/css_veuEhhb1658wti0_ZAig66JOyixENU-N9zhjLQSLfOQ.css?delta=0\u0026language=en\u0026theme=heritage_theme\u0026include=eJwrTi1LzdNPzkksLq7Uy8tPSQUAPMsGtA"}]},{"command":"invoke","selector":null,"method":"openEssay","args":["10000083","\n\n\u003Carticle about=\u0022\/constitution\/articles\/2\/essays\/84\/compensation\u0022 class=\u0022node node--type-constitution-essay node--promoted node--view-mode-embedded clearfix\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Ch1 class=\u0022title\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ECompensation\u003C\/span\u003E\n\u003C\/h1\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-location\u0022\u003E\n      Article II, Section 1, Clause 7\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-context\u0022\u003E\n      \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-body\u0022\u003E\n    \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis clause accomplishes two things: it establishes that the president is to receive a \u201ccompensation\u201d that is unalterable during the period \u201cfor which he shall have been elected,\u201d and it prohibits him within that period from receiving \u201cany other emolument\u201d from either the federal government or the states.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe proposition that the president was to receive a fixed compensation for his service in office seems to have been derived from the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, which served as a model for the Framers in other respects as well. The Constitutional Convention hardly debated the issue, except to reject, politely but decisively, the elderly Benjamin Franklin\u2019s proposal that the president should receive no monetary compensation. Perhaps the Framers feared that if Franklin\u2019s proposal were accepted, only persons of great wealth would accept presidential office.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAs Alexander Hamilton explained in \u003Cem\u003EThe Federalist\u003C\/em\u003E No. 73, the primary purpose of requiring that the president\u2019s compensation be fixed in advance of his service was to fortify the independence of the presidency, and thus to reinforce the larger constitutional design of separation of powers. \u201cThe legislature, with a discretionary power over the salary and emoluments of the Chief Magistrate, could render him as obsequious to their will as they might think proper to make him. They might in most cases either reduce him by famine, or tempt him by largesses, to surrender at discretion his judgment to their inclinations.\u201d For similar separation of powers reasons, Article III, Section 1, provides that federal judges \u201cshall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation,\u201d although that provision only forbids Congress from diminishing the judges\u2019 compensation, not from increasing it. The distinction, as Hamilton noted in \u003Cem\u003EThe Federalist \u003C\/em\u003ENo. 79, \u201cprobably arose from the difference in the duration of the respective offices.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe prohibition on presidential \u201cemoluments\u201d is one of several constitutional provisions addressed to potential conflicts of interest. Further, the Compensation Clause eliminated one possible means of circumventing the requirement that the president\u2019s compensation be fixed: without this provision Congress might seek to augment the president\u2019s \u201ccompensation\u201d by providing him with (what would purportedly differ) additional \u201cemoluments.\u201d Significantly, the prohibition on presidential emoluments also extends to the states. That requirement helps to ensure presidential impartiality among particular members or regions of the Union.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EA modern problem arose when President Ronald Reagan continued to receive retirement benefits as a retired governor of California while he was in the White House. He had been receiving benefits since the expiration of his second term in 1975. In a 1981 opinion, the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel focused on the purpose of the Compensation Clause, which was in its view \u201cto prevent Congress or any of the states from attempting to influence the President through financial rewards or penalties.\u201d Given that President Reagan\u2019s retirement benefits were a vested right under California law rather than a gratuity that the state could withhold, the purpose of the clause would not be furthered by preventing him from receiving them.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe meaning of the Compensation Clause also arose in the context of President Richard M. Nixon\u2019s papers. As authorized by the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974, the government had taken or seized President Nixon\u2019s papers after he had left office. President Nixon (succeeded by his estate) sued for compensation for the taking of what he alleged to be his property under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The government argued that the Compensation Clause precluded payment of compensation on the theory that the presidential materials were the product of President Nixon\u2019s exercise of powers conferred on him by the United States, and that therefore he could not sell them for his personal profit, even after his presidency, without impermissibly receiving an \u201cEmolument\u201d over and above the fixed compensation to which he was entitled. The district court rejected the government\u2019s argument, relying in part on a prior appellate determination that President Nixon was the owner of the materials in question. It found that President Nixon\u2019s entitlement to just compensation had vested when the government took his property (i.e., after he had left office), and therefore that \u201cthe plain language of the Emoluments Clause would not be violated because Mr. Nixon would receive compensation subsequent to the expiration of his term of office.\u201d The government argued that such a finding necessarily implied that a sitting president could sell his papers for profit during his tenure of office\u2014to which the court demurred that \u201cthose are not the facts in this case.\u201d The court also found, however, that the papers \u201cwere not transferred to [President Nixon] by the government as compensation for his service in office,\u201d perhaps implying that a president could indeed sell his papers during his term. \u003Cem\u003EGriffin v. United States\u003C\/em\u003E (1995). Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, however, presidents no longer have title to their papers, 44 U.S.C. \u00a7 2202, and so cannot sell them, thus obviating the issue of whether such sales would be emoluments.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--media\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--photo\u0022 style=\u0022background-image: url(\/sites\/default\/files\/Robert_Delahunty.jpg)\u0022\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--info\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Ch4 class=\u0022con-essay-author--name\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.stthomas.edu\/law\/faculty\/bios\/delahuntyrobert.htm\u0022\u003ERobert Delahunty\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/h4\u003E\n                  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--job\u0022\u003E\n         Associate Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-tabs\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cul data-tabs class=\u0022tabs\u0022\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000083-taba\u0022\u003EFurther Reading\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000083-tabb\u0022\u003ECase Law\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000083-tabc\u0022\u003ERelated Essays\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n      \u003C\/ul\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv data-tabs-content\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000083-taba\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe President and the Judges\u2014Tax on Salaries of, 13 Op. Att\u2019y Gen. 161 (1869)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003EPresident Reagan\u2019s Ability to Receive Retirement Benefits from the State of California, 5 Op. O.L.C. 187 (1981)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003EAdrian Vermeule, \u003Ci\u003EThe Constitutional Law of Official\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003ECompensation\u003C\/i\u003E, 102\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003ECOLUM. L. REV. 501 (2002)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000083-tabb\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003EGriffin v. United States, 935 F. Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1995)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000083-tabc\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000067\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EEmoluments Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000104\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EJudicial Compensation Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n\u003C\/article\u003E\n"]}]