House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that he would support a stand-alone bill to pay military personnel amid the shutdown.
Speaking to reporters outside the Capitol, Jeffries urged House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has canceled all House votes since Sept. 29, to call lawmakers back to Washington so they can ensure the troops are paid on schedule.
“What House Republicans need to do is come back so we can address the military pay issue and reopen the government,” Jeffries told reporters just outside the Capitol. “This is an extraordinary thing. … Members of the House Republican Conference are upset and perplexed that their leadership has them on vacation week after week after week.”
The issue of military pay has become a centerpiece of the partisan fight over federal funding and how to reopen the government nine days into the shutdown. Members of the military are scheduled to be paid Oct. 15, but those checks will be withheld if Congress doesn’t act beforehand.
On Tuesday, Johnson suggested he was ready to support a stand-alone bill to pay the troops and air traffic controllers, even if other parts of the government remained shuttered.
“We’re monitoring that day by day,” he said. “I’m certainly open to that. We’ve done it in the past. We want to make sure that our troops are paid.”
But the idea is opposed by Senate Republican leaders, who are hoping to maximize the pressure on Senate Democrats to support the GOP’s short-term spending bill, which would fund all areas of the federal government, including the military.
On Wednesday, Johnson walked back his openness to a stand-alone Pentagon bill, saying if Democrats want to fund the military they should support the larger package. The Speaker amplified that position on Thursday, when he was pressed on the issue by a C-Span caller who urged him not to allow the troops to go without pay.
“The Republicans are the ones delivering for you. We had a vote to pay the troops. It was the continuing resolution three weeks ago,” Johnson told the caller. “The Democrats are the ones preventing you from getting a check.”
Back in the Capitol a short time later, Johnson told reporters that such a bill would be futile because Senate Democrats wouldn’t support it.
“They decided to turn this into a political stunt. So coming back here and doing it — and having a duplicative vote to do the same thing we already did — would accomplish nothing, because Chuck Schumer’s going to stop it in the Senate,” Johnson said. “They’re playing games.”
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), who represents a large number of military personnel in her Norfolk district, has sponsored legislation to ensure the troops get paid during the shutdown, and some Republicans are hoping for a chance to vote on the bill before Oct. 15.
President Trump has also endorsed the idea of passing such a bill. On Wednesday, he said “that probably will happen.”