labels: Economy - general
The Saxbe Fix makes Hillary Clinton eligible news
12 December 2008

Hillary ClintonThe US Congress has cut the salary of the secretary of state by about $4,700 in a little legislative sleight of hand that will actually allow Hillary Rodham Clinton to be eligible to assume her position as the next secretary of state of the United States of America. According to a little known clause in the US Constitution, known as the Emoluments clause, a member of Congress may not be appointed to a government position if the compensation for that position was increased during his or her term.

In 2006, the salary for cabinet posts was increased to $191,300 from $186,600 by president Bush. So late on Wednesday, Congress cut the pay for the secretary of state by about $4,700 thereby ensuring that at least the spirit of the law, if not the letter, was met.

The good news for the hard working junior senator from New York is that she will still make about $10,000 more a year in her cabinet position than what she is currently draws as a senator.

The Saxbe Fix
The Saxbe Fix is basically a rollback that allows a resolution to an ineligibility clause that bars sitting members of the US Congress to be appointed to posts that is either created for them or which they voted a salary increase. Named after William B. Saxbe, who went on to become the fourth attorney general during the tenure of Richard Nixon as US president, it has been actually been used much before.

On 11 February 1909 United States senator from Pennsylvania, Philander C. Knox, was picked by President Taft to be secretary of state and the salary was re-set to the pre-appointment level.

In the Saxbe instance, president Richard Nixon appointed Saxbe as the United States attorney general from his position as a United States Senator from Ohio. Saxbe had been a senator in 1969 when the Congress passed a pay increase from $35,000 to $60,000 for Cabinet members. Saxbe's salary was reduced to $35,000 and he went on to serve as Nixon's fourth and final attorney general.

President Jimmy Carter used the Saxbe Fix to appoint Edmund Muskie as his secretary of state after Cyrus Vance resigned in the course of the Iran hostages imbroglio.

The ploy was used once again when president George HW Bush (the elder) approved a Saxbe Fix so that Lloyd Bentsen could move from the Senate to take the job of Treasury Secretary during the Bill Clinton administration.


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The Saxbe Fix makes Hillary Clinton eligible