The US Senate, mostly millionaires, votes to freeze its pay during shutdowns
When you don’t work, you don’t get paid. That’s how it works for most Americans. U.S. senators say they want to join in on that.
Senators unanimously passed a resolution to suspend the pay of U.S. senators during any government shutdown, and will likely fully adopt the resolution in the coming weeks.
Will this move actually help prevent or end the chaos of government shutdowns we’ve seen over the last decade?
Senator pay
The resolution, sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La, passed 99-0. It will not need to be approved by the House or President Donald Trump.
“At least some of them will be affected and realize that if other government employees are not getting their paycheck, they shouldn’t either,” Richard Painter, law professor at the University of Minnesota and former Chief White House Ethics Lawyer under the George W. Bush administration, told Straight Arrow.
If another government shutdown happens, senators would stop receiving their paychecks temporarily, but they would not lose them. Much like other federal workers, they would receive back pay once a shutdown ends.
However, this new rule would not be implemented until after the November midterm elections.
With another government shutdown expected in the fall, this new rule would not apply to that potential shutdown.
“They’re paid an amount set by law,” David Super, law professor at Georgetown University, told Straight Arrow. “That amount cannot be changed until the next Congress.”
That’s due to the 27th Amendment, which is the most recent amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Ratified in 1992, it stipulates no congressional pay changes until the next House is elected.
What’s unclear is whether this type of change falls under the 27th Amendment.
“It might be a constitutional issue, but I think that it’s really more political,” Painter said. “They are deciding here that they want to be able to get through the midterms, and they’re gonna have to spend a lot of money trying to keep themselves in office.”
Avoiding shutdowns
Will this move actually help or prevent government shutdowns?
Most of the experts Straight Arrow spoke with called the resolution more of a public relations move than anything else.
“It’s PR, it’s not gonna end government shutdowns,” Painter said.
Congress could probably use some PR moves right now, with only 10% of Americans approving of the job they’re doing.
“We elect people to cast votes for what’s good for the country, and many people think that our elected representatives are not doing that,” Super said.
When federal workers lose their paychecks during a government shutdown, many of them struggle.
Senators are unlikely to face that same issue.
“The senators, especially, are a pretty rich bunch,” Philip Wallach, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Straight Arrow. “It’s true. There’s more people of normal means in the House than in the Senate.”
At least 73 of the 100 senators have a net worth of more than $1 million. That’s not representative of America, where only 7% of the country has that kind of money.
The median net worth of the Senate is more than $4 million.
“This certainly could accelerate the movement to having the hyper-rich dominate the Senate even more than they already do,” Super said.
That’s led by members like Sen. Jim C. Justice, R-W.Va., with a net worth of more than $600 million and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., with a net worth of more than $500 million.
Losing paychecks for a few weeks may not make them feel enough like furloughed TSA workers to prevent government shutdowns.
Government shutdowns
There have been three government shutdowns since September of last year, lasting in total more than 100 days. That includes a full government shutdown that lasted 43 days.
As Painter said, if you’re in the Senate, “you need to either have money or know people with money.”
So, suspending a few paychecks of those people may not avoid this ongoing issue.
Every expert Straight Arrow spoke with about this mentioned the exact same word when it came to how to actually avoid shutdowns:
“Budget.”
“They need to balance the budget,” Painter said. “By the way, they’re borrowing more and more money every year, and we haven’t had a balanced budget since Clinton was in the White House and the Republicans ran Congress.”
Government shutdowns were, for the most part, just not a thing before the 1980s.
It wasn’t until former President Jimmy Carter appointed Benjamin Civiletti, who gave Carter some legal advice and the shutdown was accidentally invented.
In the 1970s, funding lapses started to occur because several appropriations measures started becoming mixed in with issues like abortion and school integration.
At the time, funding still flowed even during those lapses.
The 1884 Antideficiency Act prohibits federal agencies from spending funds before they’re appropriated by Congress. However, former Comptroller General Elmer Staats said that the law didn’t mean operations should just end during those lapses.
Civiletti disagreed. He felt that the 1884 law should be taken verbatim, and non-appropriated funds should not be doled out. Federal officials could actually be fined or jailed for spending money without funding.
That debate between the Comptroller General and the Attorney General remains at the heart of why we get government shutdowns today.
“It’s embarrassing to Congress, but it’s also a valuable source of leverage for the minority, and there aren’t actually a whole lot of those around,” Wallach said.
Shutdowns cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
So, solving this issue is something experts agree should be a priority but seems to be heading the other direction.
“Congress is just not a very serious fiscal policymaker,” Wallach said.
Round out your reading
- Are aliens real? Pentagon’s newly released UFO files suggest the truth is out there.
- A million Americans get this knee surgery every year. But does it work?
- Is the apocalypse now? One man is tracking flights by the rich to find out.
- ‘No Mow May’: A boon for the bees or a well-intended mistake?
- We’re building a new Straight Arrow. Help us shape our future by taking our survey.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
