Federal employees go without pay during government shutdowns, so why don’t lawmakers in Congress? Thanks to a resolution adopted unanimously by the Senate on Thursday, U.S. Senators will soon have to go without pay during a government shutdown.
The resolution (S. Res. 526) was spearheaded by Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) who described it as “shared sacrifice” between senators and federal employees. He said in a statement after the passage of the resolution:
This is about shared sacrifice. If senators are going to vote to shut down the government and prevent millions of federal workers from getting paid, they ought to have the same skin in the game. My resolution will ensure that senators aren’t the only people receiving their paychecks during a government shutdown.
The resolution was originally introduced in December. In an editorial advocating for the measure in January, Kennedy wrote in The Hill:
The fact that politicians can use other people’s paychecks as a political football without sacrificing their own salary makes most fair-minded Americans want to stick their heads in an oven. Most Americans believe what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If federal workers aren’t getting paid, members of Congress shouldn’t get paid either.
As partial government shutdowns become increasingly used as a political weapon in Congress, they have gotten longer. The last shutdown that impacted DHS ran for 76 days, the longest in history. A 43-day shutdown happened only a few months prior. And each time they occur, federal employees are caught in the middle. While they will eventually get paid, their paychecks are disrupted while the shutdowns are ongoing, and 43 and 76 days are a long time to go without a paycheck.
In a floor speech about his resolution, Kennedy said:
Last October we shut down government 43 days. It’s the longest shutdown in history. And we had FBI agents and national park rangers and CDC scientists, our staff here in Congress; nobody was getting paid. And then three months later, after we finally got out of that 43-day shutdown, we shut down the Department of Homeland Security. It was shut down for 76 days. And this is all in one year. We ought to hide our heads in a bag. It’s got to stop.
The new resolution does not go into effect in the Senate until the midterm elections coming up in November, and it only withholds pay during shutdowns for the Senate, not the House of Representatives. After the lapse in appropriations is over, pay will be released to senators “as soon as practicable after the date on which the government shutdown ends” per the wording of the resolution.
Kennedy said he would have it go into effect immediately if he could because he is “very concerned that my Senate colleagues on the Democratic side are going to try to shut down government yet again right before the elections to try to create chaos to affect the midterm elections. If I’m wrong in that prediction, I will come here and apologize to every senator by name.”
However, because of the 27th Amendment, any law change impacting the salaries of members of Congress cannot take effect until after the next election.
