House freshmen are angry that their first few weeks in office were marked by a record-long government shutdown, and want to punish Congress to make sure it never happens again.
Two groups of freshman lawmakers introduced bills this week that would hit members of Congress where they never get hit: their own paychecks.
Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, proposed the Solidarity in Salary Act this week. It would withhold lawmaker salaries during a shutdown, and only allow them to be paid back once the shutdown ends, just like federal workers.
“Federal workers don’t get paid during a government shutdown. Neither should politicians,” said Golden. “That’s just common sense.”
“When a congressional impasse causes federal employees to go unpaid, members of Congress should have to withhold their pay,” Crenshaw added. “We should have to feel the very real effects of a shutdown, just as our fellow federal employees are forced to do.”
They introduced their bill with two other freshman Democrats, Max Rose of New York and T.J. Cox of California.
Bills like these typically run into legal trouble: the 27th Amendment to the Constitution says changes to lawmaker pay can’t take place until a new Congress convenes. That makes it hard for a Congress to punish itself.
The Golden-Crenshaw bill tries to get around that problem by holding lawmaker pay in escrow during the shutdown, instead of gutting it altogether.
Another group of freshmen, all Democrats, proposed the Shutdown To End All Shutdowns Act. That bill, from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., would ban lawmaker travel during shutdowns, and would require daily quorum calls aimed at keeping lawmakers at work.
“The only people who should suffer financial hardship when elected leaders can’t govern are the elected leaders themselves,” Houlahan said.
“I’m proud to be introducing a bill that ensures federal workers aren’t held hostage by stalled negotiations, and puts real skin in the game for members of Congress and the president if they can’t do their jobs,” added Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., one of nearly two dozen House Democrats on the bill.
Houlahan’s bill would hold pay for members of the current Congress in escrow, but it would deny pay to lawmakers from future Congresses.
But it’s not clear any of these ideas can become law. House Republicans on Wednesday vigorously opposed a resolution that said government shutdowns are bad and shouldn’t be engineered as a response to a policy dispute.
Most Republicans rejected the nonbinding resolution as an attempt by Democrats to blame President Trump for the 35-day shutdown that ended last week, raising questions about whether any binding legislation related to shutdowns could move in the GOP-led Senate.
[Opinion: The shutdown caused us an economic beating. Let’s not take another]
