Sequester Should Apply to Pay of Members of Congress

Floor Speech

Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Speaker, much has been said about sequestration, but few have mentioned what bothers me the most about it. The pay of Members of Congress is exempted from the sequester. When Members of Congress exempt themselves from the operation of the law, it is not only unfair, it actually violates a core principle of republican government.

There is no less an authority than James Madison who will back me up on this. In The Federalist No. 57, he wrote:

I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America--a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

In the spirit of James Madison, I will be filing legislation to make the sequester apply to the pay of Members of Congress at the first moment that is constitutionally permissible. Members of this body must live under the same rules as everybody else. Our Founding Fathers expected it; the American people demand it.

Source