House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday signaled opposition to moving a stand-alone bill to pay military service members during a government shutdown, walking back his Tuesday statement saying he was open to holding such a vote.
If the shutdown drags on and Congress does not pass a bill to pay the troops or reopen the government, Oct. 15 will mark the first time in the modern times that service members missed a paycheck during a government shutdown. In previous shutdowns, Congress had either already funded the military or passed a measure to ensure troop pay.
Asked in a press conference Wednesday if he would move a bill by unanimous consent to pay the troops if the shutdown drags into next week — which would not require bringing back all House members to vote if there were no objections — Johnson signaled he would not.
Democrats, the Speaker alleged, “are clamoring to get back here and have another vote, because some of them want to get on record and say they were paying the troops.”
“We already had that vote. It’s called the CR [continuing resolution],” Johnson said, referring to the House-passed, GOP-crafted stopgap to fund the government through Nov. 21.
Senate Democrats have blocked that measure repeatedly in the Senate as they push for the extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
“They voted that they did not want the troops to be paid. They did not want TSA [Transportation Security Administration] agents to be paid. They did not want air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents and all the rest. They live with that vote. They made that decision. The House is done. The ball is now in the Senate’s court,” Johnson said.
“It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes,” Johnson said.
His comments in the Wednesday press conference mark a walk-back from what he said in a Tuesday joint press conference with Senate GOP leaders, where a split emerged when a reporter asked about a bill to pay the troops and air traffic controllers.
“We’re monitoring that day-by-day. I’m certainly open to that. We’ve done it in the past. We want to make sure that our troops are paid,” Johnson said Tuesday.
Johnson mentioned that Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) previously filed a bill to ensure troops are paid in a government shutdown, adding: “We’re looking forward to processing all this as soon as we gather everybody back up, but again, the most important thing is to turn the lights back on here.”
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) then signaled a different strategy.
“The simplest way to end it is not try to exempt this group or that group or that group, it’s to try to get the government open and then all the adverse consequences of this go by the wayside,” he said.
Kiggans, for her part, is calling on GOP leaders to pass her bill to pay the troops.
“The President has made it clear: we must pay our troops. I’m urging the Speaker and our House leadership to immediately pass my bill to ensure our servicemembers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck while supporting their families, receive the pay they’ve earned,” Kiggans said in a statement. “Military pay should not be held hostage due to Washington’s dysfunction!”
Trump in a speech to members of the Navy on Sunday told them to not “worry about” missed paychecks amid the shutdown, and they will get “every last penny.”
Updated at 11:54 a.m. EDT