Would Hillary’s Appointment To Secretary Of State Be Unconstitutional?
It could be per Article 1, Section 6:
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; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.
What this means is that a member of Congress cannot take an appointment for which the pay has gone up during the time he/she held office in Congress. Since the pay for the Secretary of State has gone up in the last year that would appear to preclude Hillary from getting appointed.
And even if the pay were reduced, by a strict reading of the text (which may or may not even matter to the powers that be these days given how little respect there is out here for what the Constitution actually says) that still wouldn’t be enough.
Hillary may want to be Secretary of State, but it doesn’t look like she can be.
