Republicans rejected a motion in the Senate Wednesday to provide paid medical and family leave to federal workers, even though several members of the party have introduced paid parental leave bills this year.
Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii introduced a motion that would have instructed lawmakers to include the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act in the National Defense Authorization Act, saying that workers were abandoning government jobs for other careers that do provide leave. The provision, which was included in the House version of the defense bill, would apply to the 2 million employees who work for the federal government, allowing them to get paid when they take 12 weeks of sick or parental leave.
The 47-48 vote was non-binding, meaning the outcome of paid leave wasn’t guaranteed even if senators had voted in favor, but it allows the public to gauge were senators are on paid leave, a policy priority for first daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump. Wednesday’s vote may be the only chance senators have to vote on paid leave this session, said Debra Ness, president of National Partnership for Women & Families.
The United States stands in contrast to other industrialized nations in that it has not set a mandatory or subsidized leave policy. Under the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act, employers with 50 workers or more must allow 12 weeks of leave every year so they care for a new child or an ill parent, but in most cases, the leave isn’t paid.
Republicans have become more interested in looking at ways the government could provide leave, but even those who have introduced proposals rejected the motion Wednesday. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were among the Republicans who voted for the motion alongside Democrats.
While GOP senators rejected the paid leave proposal, they did vote 55-39 in favor of a second motion introduced by GOP Sen. Joni Erst of Iowa that would allow the conference to “consider potential commonsense solutions regarding family and medical leave, including voluntary compensatory time programs and incentives through the tax code.”
That would include the ideas Republicans have introduced. Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Mitt Romney of Utah teamed up for a bill, as have Ernst and Mike Lee of Utah. Their plans would allow new parents to dig into Social Security early to fund time off.
Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has put out a bipartisan proposal alongside Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona that would allow parents claim future child tax credits early to help pay for childcare or replace wages.
One of the main reasons most Democrats oppose all of those ideas is because none of them would expand to sick leave. They instead support adding a payroll tax to fund paid family leave, in a bill introduced by Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
Gillibrand spoke from the Senate floor Wednesday, urging colleagues to support the Schatz motion and criticizing Republican plans.
“This is not a benefit,” she said. “It is a cynical plan that would erode our American workers’ ability to make ends meet and harm their access to real paid leave.”
Ernst said she opposed the Schatz motion Wednesday because it only applied to federal workers, and she urged her colleagues to support studying the matter.
“While I appreciate my colleague from the State of Hawaii’s resolution, putting Washington insiders and federal employees first doesn’t add up as the right first step,” she said on the Senate floor. “I believe we need to think more broadly about this issue and how it impacts hardworking families in Iowa and across the country.”
