Unfortunately, there’s that pesky 27th Amendment, which says ‘No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.’ So it seems that if the bill became law, it would have no effect on the current manufactured crisis.
Question: I think most people define ‘compensation’ as ‘salary’. But withholding pay (rather than increasing or decreasing salaries) is ‘varying the compensation’. Would it in fact be constitutional to withhold pay from future congresses if a government shutdown occurs or if other specified parameters are not met?
Certainly they could pass a law saying salaries would be withheld in proportion if the government shuts down or whatever. The only Constitutional issue would be whether it could apply to the current Congress or not. But it certainly could apply to the representatives and senators starting in 2016 after the next election.
Presumably if the law says “withheld” - held back until the shutdown is over - one could argue that does not violate the spirit of the amendment; but then the holdouts get their big payday at the end. If the money is forfeit, it does violate the amendment -until after the next election. However, a fine (or a “tax”, thank you Judge Roberts) would probably be legal in any case, any time, anyhow.
What’s the criteria? Government shoutdowns don’t usually require any action from the legislative ranch – money is running out, or something critical isn’t voted on, and the shutdown happens. Do you blame the Speaker of the House for not letting a critical bill get voted on? I could be wrong, but I’ve never heard of a “Shut down the government – Yea or Nay” vote. Dumb as they are, they’re usually not so dumb as to put their name to a bill like that.
Actually, there typically is a vote on a bill called a continuing resolution to keep government operations going until the full budget can be worked out.
In 2013, there were also a series of bills during the shutdown to relieve the impacts of the shutdown on certain favored programs – for example, the Pay Our Military Act made sure that troops got paychecks even while there was a funding gap for most of the rest of government.
Actually, there typically is a vote on a bill called a continuing resolution to keep government operations going until the full budget can be worked out. …QUOTE]
Yes, and if they DON’T vote for it, that shutdown happens. They won’t put themselves in a position to vote outright to shut down the government.
Ah - re-reading your post I now understand you’re talking about assessing blame for a shutdown. Blame is subjective – for example, Clinton vetoed bills that would have kept the government open, but he wasn’t blamed for the shutdown. So I don’t think there’s any mechanical way to construct a suspension of pay for members who are to blame for the shutdown – if the OP’s proposal were to be enacted, I suppose the only way to carry it out would be to apply the same standards to elected officials as they do to civil servants: during a shutdown, you don’t get paid. There could be no calculation as to fault, or “you voted the right way so you keep getting paid.”
I don’t want this to become a debate. I was just wondering about the legality of the proposed, or similar, bills. I think that has been answered.
As for ‘assigning blame’, and this is IMO, I would have it work like this: If the government doesn’t shut down, all of the Reps and Sens gets paid. If there is a shutdown, none of them do.
