A Republican bill to immediately pay federal employees who are working throughout the government shutdown is heading toward a possible Senate vote — but Democrats are now working on an alternative that would include compensation for furloughed employees as well.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune placed the GOP-led Shutdown Fairness Act on the Senate’s calendar earlier this week to try to push the legislation toward a vote, likely on Thursday.
Many Senate Democrats, however, indicated they would not vote for the legislation, since it does not include immediate financial relief for the roughly 700,000 federal employees who are currently furloughed without pay.
“I don’t like the bill because it gives the president the ability to decide who’s essential and who’s not, and what we see is he is using this in a political way,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told reporters Wednesday. “[President Donald Trump] would use this discretionary power to punish some and reward others.”
Democrats are assembling a counterproposal to the legislation, which would provide immediate pay for furloughed employees — as well as pay for excepted employees. The effort is led by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), but it’s so far unclear if the proposal will come as an amendment or a standalone bill.
Regardless of the tactic, Kaine said the Democrats’ effort “is an even-handed approach to paying federal employees who are affected by the shutdown.”
Both excepted and furloughed federal employees are guaranteed retroactive pay once a shutdown ends, due to a 2019 law. The White House has called that guarantee into question for furloughed employees, but many have pushed back against what they described as a clear misinterpretation of the law from the Trump administration.
Military members, law enforcement officers, and certain categories of personnel at the Department of Homeland Security have already received paychecks under the shutdown, as the Trump administration shuffles funding to compensate select groups of the federal workforce.
The Shutdown Fairness Act, if enacted, would immediately pay all “excepted” federal employees as the shutdown continues. The legislation, first introduced by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), would also provide retroactive compensation dating back to the start of the funding lapse on Oct. 1.
Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) are leading the effort on the Shutdown Fairness Act’s companion bill in the House.
“This bill stands up for those who show up — paying federal workers what we owe them, shutdown or not,” Mackenzie said Tuesday.
The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) said Wednesday that it supported the Shutdown Fairness Act. In a letter to senators, NARFE wrote that the legislation would benefit excepted employees, while not adding further harm to furloughed employees. NARFE also pushed back against arguments that the legislation is politically charged.
“The bill does not single out favored political functions over disfavored ones, but rather focuses on a distinction between those required to work and those not,” NARFE National President Bill Shackelford said. “That distinction is generally neutral with respect to the partisan political disputes regarding what the government should and should not do.”
At the same time, though, NARFE acknowledged that passing legislation to pay federal employees may lessen the pressure on lawmakers to bring the shutdown to an end quickly. But the organization said it wouldn’t oppose efforts that would pay federal employees during the funding lapse.
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that advocates for non-partisan improvements to the federal government, also expressed at least some support for the Shutdown Fairness Act. But the organization pointed out that it’s an incomplete solution to supporting federal employees through the funding lapse, which has now stretched into its fourth week.
“Career federal employees, both military and civilian, should not bear the brunt of this dereliction of duty,” said Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO. “The Shutdown Fairness Act partially remedies the financial harms for some federal employees but ought to apply to all public servants, who are victims rather than perpetrators of the shutdown.”
Although federal employees are given back pay once a shutdown ends, they still face delayed compensation in the meantime. Federal employees are bracing for their first fully missed paycheck at the end of this week. Many received their final and partial paychecks around Oct. 10.
Federal contract workers, some of whom are in lower-paying jobs such as janitorial, food and security positions at federal facilities, are not extended the same guarantee of back pay.
Recent research from the Partnership for Public Service found that about half of Americans report seeing direct impacts of the shutdown in their communities, such as travel delays and facility closures. Research experts expect those impacts to grow the longer the shutdown continues.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email [email protected] or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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