DC Funding Fights 'Pulls the Rug Out' From Under States, Says Gov. Lamont

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont sits down with Lisa Abramowicz to discuss Connecticut's position in the business community, covering key funding for Connecticut residents amid the current government shutdown and the future of the democratic party.

Senate Republicans pushed back on a White House assertion that some federal workers may not receive back pay when the government shutdown ends, a move sure to launch more lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Congress settled the issue when it enacted a law (Public Law 116-1) requiring that all federal employees receive back pay after government shutdowns end. That conflicts with a new stance by President Donald Trump’s administration, which has argued the back pay isn’t automatic for workers who are furloughed.

“Congress settled that issue in the 2019 law,” Collins told reporters Tuesday.

Denying federal workers back pay after the shutdown will prompt lawsuits from public sector unions and employees, employment attorneys predicted. It’s already rankled Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, who see legal and political weaknesses in the White House’s stance.

“The bottom line is it shouldn’t be up to the president,” said Zachary Price, a University of California-San Francisco law professor who was a Justice Department lawyer during the Obama administration.

If Congress refuses to appropriate funds for back pay, workers may be able to see compensation through the US Court of Federal Claims, which resolves monetary claims against the government, Price said.

Collins proposed “a backup” measure, writing into any government-funding bill a provision “that says any obligations that were incurred during the shutdown are authorized to be paid.” That kind of provision was common in past shutdowns, when back pay wasn’t legally automatic. But it is not in the House-passed continuing resolution that has fallen five votes short of the 60 votes necessary in the Senate.

Trump this morning opened the door to blocking pay for certain federal workers when the government opens. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, led by Russell Vought, has drafted a memo that says the workers aren’t guaranteed compensation during the shutdown, a posture that raises the stakes in the confrontation with Democrats nearly a week after agencies and departments suspended non-essential operations.

About 750,000 furloughed employees could be owed an average of $400 million in back pay for each day the shutdown lasts, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Sept. 30.

The law enacted in January 2019 says that each employee of the US government “furloughed as a result of a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations.”

GOP Pushback

Other Republicans also resisted the Trump administration’s stance, highlighting tension between congressional Republicans and the president on a shutdown strategy.

“I’m not an attorney, but I think it’s bad strategy to even say that sort of stuff,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said of the White House’s stance. “We’ve got a lot of hardworking people that are on the sidelines now because the Democrats have put them there.”

The White House assertion appeared to take Republican lawmakers by surprise. Collins said she hadn’t discussed the issue directly with the Office of Management and Budget, saying it “just landed on us.” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told reporters Tuesday she “just heard” about the assertion and that her “phones are lighting up.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters he wants federal workers to receive back pay, but said “there are some legal analysts who are saying that may not be appropriate or necessary.”

Johnson’s website included guidance for federal workers that was more direct. “Under federal law, employees are entitled to back pay upon the government reopening,” the webpage said on Tuesday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jack Fitzpatrick in Washington at jfitzpatrick@bgov.com; Ian Kullgren in Washington at ikullgren@bloombergindustry.com

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