Van Hollen Leads Bill to Pay All Federal Employees, Servicemembers, & Contractors During Shutdown on Senate Floor

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) spoke on the Senate Floor and called for unanimous consent to pass his legislation to pay all federal employees - both those excepted and furloughed - as well as our servicemembers and federal contractors during the current Republican-led shutdown. The Senators' bill, the True Shutdown Fairness Act, would also prevent the Administration's attempts at mass firings (Reductions in Force or RIFs) while the government is shut down.

The True Shutdown Fairness Act is cosponsored by Senators Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Video of Senator Van Hollen's remarks can be viewed here, and a transcript is below:

SENATOR CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-Md.): I want to thank my colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner, and other colleagues who are joining together to support the proposal that we are putting forward today.

But I think we should all say that the best way to make sure that federal employees, all federal employees, get paid and that the American people get the benefit of their services is to reopen the federal government and do it now. Which is why I and my Democratic colleagues have voted seven times now, seven times now, to reopen the government without giving Donald Trump a blank check and while making sure that we prevent a health care crisis in this country when people's health care premiums and costs go through the roof.

Because when Republicans passed their so-called 'big beautiful bill,' they extended the tax breaks for billionaires and very wealthy people. The one tax cut they did not extend was the one that allows middle-class families to afford health insurance. And so, they left in place a ticking time bomb that's going off. Now, we'd like to defuse that time bomb.

Instead of negotiating on that the president has been AWOL. He has been engaged in discussions overseas regarding the Middle East. He's been on the phone a lot with Vladimir Putin. That's all good. But you would think the United States could carve out just a little time to help reopen the government - to have a negotiation on reopening the federal government.

Instead, he's bringing down Republican members of the House and Senate to the White House and wining and dining them and patting them on the back and saying, "good job, for, you know, keeping this government shut down and not entering into a negotiation to bring it to a close."

And, of course, our House colleagues - the Speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson, has essentially got the House on a five-week now, I don't know if we're on six weeks, paid vacation. I mean, they are AWOL here in the middle of this shutdown.

What is the president focused on? He's asking the Justice Department to pay him $230 million for legal bills, right, directly into his pocket. He's talking about giving his buddy in Argentina a $20 billion taxpayer bailout while farmers across the country are getting hit hard because they can't sell their soybeans to China. And he's demolishing the east wing of the white House, which is a metaphor for what he is doing to the country and people who worked for him to get him elected. I mean, he's betraying the very people he said he was going to stand up for when he said he was going to focus on prices and costs. And yet, when it comes to trying to just prevent this huge spike in health care costs that people are experiencing, the president doesn't want to talk about it.

So, we should not be punishing federal employees for something they had nothing to do with. They're not responsible. They're innocent bystanders. They all want to get back on the job and provide services to the American people. And I'll be putting forth a proposal to say that they should not be punished, and they should be paid.

Now, we'll hear later today - we're going to be taking up here in the Senate a piece of legislation from Senator Johnson. And that proposal would pay federal employees who are currently working right now. Our proposal doesn't discriminate among federal employees.

And here's the really dangerous part, I would argue, about Senator Johnson's proposal. We have a president, President Trump, who along with Russ Vought, who's his, you know, guy in the cockpit at OMB - this is the guy who said publicly that he wanted to inflict "trauma," that's his word, not mine, inflict trauma on the federal workforce. If you allow them to decide who they're going to keep on the job in the federal government and who they're going to pay, you're giving them also a blank check as to who they're going to send home and who they're going to punish by not paying.

That's what they've been doing. Much of what they've been doing is illegal. In fact, we have a federal court in California that's already said that their layoffs of some of the federal employees and some of the agencies are illegal. But if you just let them decide who is going to get paid and who's not, you weaponize that illegality - you weaponize the federal government.

And by the way, and I think we all know this, if President Trump gets to keep the folks he wants on the job and pay the folks that he wants who are on the job and nobody else, he'll have even less incentive to end the government shutdown. He'll have the government he wants, not the one that has been supported on a bipartisan basis by the United States Congress.

So, giving the President a blank check to decide which federal employees to punish and which ones not to punish is a very dangerous thing at this moment. That's why the proposal I'm putting forward - and Senator Peters will have an even narrower version that he will put forward if our Republican colleagues don't support the one that I'm advancing, along with Senator Warner, Senator Kaine, Senator Alsobrooks, and others.

These proposals say that federal employees should not be punished. Now, we've already made that decision. We've already made that decision as a Congress in the past. During the first Trump shutdown - that was the 35-day Trump shutdown. During that shutdown, Senator Cardin, myself, and others - we passed a piece of legislation that was signed by the president that says at the end of a shutdown federal employees get fully paid. They're held harmless. Why did we decide to do that? Because we collectively made the right decision that federal employees who have nothing to do with the government shutdown should not be the ones punished for something they were not culpable in. That was the right decision.

What my proposal and our proposal will do is based on that idea - that no federal employee should be punished for something they had nothing to do with. And not only should they get repaid at the end of this, but why would we say to them that you can't have enough pay to make your electric bills, or pay your water bills, or provide for your family? Why should federal employees be the ones who are punished for the government shutdown? Why should they be the ones that have to overdraft their bank accounts - be penalized for that? That's not fair.

So, the proposals that we're putting forward say that in this government shutdown, federal employees and, yes, certain federal contractors who have nothing to do with this political situation that we face - they should not be the ones to bear the burden. And we certainly shouldn't set up a system where the President of the United States gets to decide what agencies to shut down, what they can open, who to pay and who not to pay, who to punish, who not to punish.

That just gives him a blank check to put in place political cronies and pay them, and send home hardworking civil servants who perform important functions. So, that's what our proposal will do. And for any of our colleagues, regardless of the side of the aisle, who agree that federal employees should not be the ones who are punished for something they got nothing to do with, I hope you'll all agree to support this measure.

Now, I don't know if, Mr. President, Senator Peters wants to talk at all on this particular proposal. He's going to be talking on the next proposal. I know that some of my colleagues are on the way to the floor, as we speak. Senator Kaine, and others - and I will, when they arrive, I will return the floor to them to say their piece.

But at this time, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S3039 introduced earlier today, that the bill be considered, read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered, made and laid upon the table.