B-123424 April 15, 1955
Highlights
Johnson: Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of March 28. You are informed that members of the Congress may not.
B-123424 April 15, 1955
Mr. Zeake W. Johnson, Jr., Sergeant at Arms House of Representatives
Dear Mr. Johnson:
Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of March 28, 1955, requesting our decision concerning the validity of a waiver by a member of the House of Representatives of the recent increase in compensation granted by section 4 of the act of March 2, 1955, 69 Stat. 11, and requesting that he be paid at the old salary rate of $15,000 per annum from March 1, 1955, to December 31, 1956.
In our decision of March 19, 1925, A-8427, to the then Sergeant at Arms, House of Representatives, involving a similar situation, we held that the payment of salary of members of the Congress could be made only at the rate fixed by law. Accordingly, you are informed that members of the Congress may not, in the absence of statutory authority, waive any portion of their statutory salaries. However, after receipt of their salary at the statutory rate for this period (thus giving the Government a good acquisition) some members would be at liberty, should they so desire to return any portion thereof to the United States Treasury.
Sincerely yours,
JOSEPH CAMPBELL Comptroller General of the United States