Senate votes to freeze members’ pay during future shutdowns

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved a resolution Thursday that will prevent lawmakers in that chamber from receiving their paychecks during any government shutdowns that begin after this year’s midterm elections. 

The voice vote on the measure from Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy will not impact members in the House of Representatives since each chamber of Congress is able to set its own rules and procedures. 

The two-page resolution requires the secretary of the Senate to disperse but then hold onto lawmakers paychecks if Congress fails to fund any agency within the federal government on time. 

Kennedy said during a floor speech Wednesday he hoped the resolution would reduce the likelihood of future government shutdowns, following three within the last year. 

“It’s got to stop,” he said. “Shutting down government should not be our default solution to our refusal to work out our issues and our differences.”

Similar to how federal employees receive back pay after a shutdown ends, Kennedy said his resolution would do the same for senators.

“The senator’s salary just would not be available to that senator while we’re in a shutdown but once a shutdown is over you’ll get your money,” he said. 

In order to get the votes to adopt the resolution, Kennedy said he “had to make a few accommodations,” including that it did not apply to the House and wouldn’t take effect before the elections to comply with the 27th Amendment.  

Members of Congress earn $174,000 annually, with those in leadership positions making more. The Constitution allows lawmakers to set their own salaries, which are covered by a permanent, mandatory appropriation. 

Lawmakers and the president, unlike the staff who work for them or those throughout the rest of the federal government, received their salaries during past shutdowns unless they took action to halt their paychecks. 

Several members asked either the House Chief Administrative Officer or the Senate Finance Clerk to hold onto their paychecks during the first shutdown. 

Congress is supposed to pass the dozen annual government funding bills before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 but hasn’t completed all of its work on time in three decades. 

Lawmakers regularly approve at least one stopgap spending bill to keep federal programs running mostly on autopilot while the House and Senate work to finalize those appropriations bills during the fall, typically sending them to the president sometime in December. 

Policy differences and heightened political tensions, however, led to three shutdowns of varying impact during this fiscal year. 

The first began last October and lasted through Nov. 12 as Democrats tried unsuccessfully to force Republicans to extend enhanced tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

Lawmakers were able to pass six of the spending bills before a brief partial shutdown took place from Jan. 31 through Feb. 3. The law that ended that funding lapse included five more of the spending bills, leaving Homeland Security as the only department without its annual appropriations bill. 

Democratic demands for constraints on immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis led to a third shutdown for many of the agencies within DHS. That lasted from Feb. 14 through April 30 when Congress approved their last funding bill without new spending for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. 

Republicans plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process to approve $72 billion that would cover three years of immigration enforcement activities. GOP lawmakers can do that without Democratic votes in the Senate as long as they stick to the rules.  

Lawmakers in both chambers have also begun work on the next fiscal year’s batch of 12 government funding bills, though it’s highly unlikely they all become law before the end of September. 

That presents the possibility of yet another government shutdown just weeks before voters head to the polls during November’s midterm elections to decide which political party will control Congress for the next two years.