Several lawmakers have said they will forfeit or donate their paychecks as a partial government shutdown enters its third week.
Approximately 25 percent of the government shut down on Dec. 22, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, Interior and State. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have either been furloughed or forced to work without pay.
{mosads}While federal workers received their scheduled paychecks last week, thousands could see a delay in getting their next one, scheduled for Jan. 11, if a spending deal isn’t reached on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Here are some of the lawmakers relinquishing their salaries as the shutdown continues:
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.): Bacon wrote a letter to the House chief administrative officer in December that “Members of Congress should be treated the same as all other federal employees who are impacted by a government shutdown … Fairness and decency dictates that my pay also be withheld.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.): Blumenthal pledged in December to donate his Senate pay to Homes for the Brave, a charity that provides homes to homeless Connecticut veterans.
Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.): Brooks submitted a letter to the House administrator the day the shutdown began asking her salary be withheld. She said her offices would remain open for constituents.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.): Manchin says he will donate his pay during the shutdown to food banks across West Virginia in an effort to help feed families that rely on food stamps.
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.): Buchanan stated in December that he would not accept his salary, saying the shutdown was “another sad example of Washington’s dysfunction and inability to compromise.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.): Cheney requested her salary be withheld during the shutdown, saying it is not “appropriate” for members of Congress to be paid.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.): Cortez Masto announced hours before the shutdown took hold that she would donate her salary to a Nevada charity.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas): “I cannot in good conscience get paid while federal employees’ financial futures hang in the balance because of this partial government shutdown. I’ve asked the Chief Administrative Officer to withhold my pay until we have come to an agreement to adequately fund border security,” he tweeted Jan. 10.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.): Espaillat said in December that he asked for his salary to be withheld during the shutdown in solidarity with the “more than 14,000 New Yorkers who are affected during the #TrumpShutdown.”
Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.): Evans asked the House administrator Wednesday to withhold his salary, saying he was inspired after he talked with an air traffic control worker and mother affected by the shutdown.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.): Fitzpatrick said he would forfeit his salary during the shutdown, decrying it as an example of “a failure to lead from both parties” and urging other colleagues to join him. “Let’s send a message to the extreme partisans on both sides: do your job or don’t get paid,” he said in a statement.
Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.): “I strongly believe it is inappropriate for members of Congress to be paid while portions of the federal government remain shut down,” Gianforte wrote in a letter Thursday requesting that his pay be withheld.
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.): Green said Friday it was inappropriate for members of Congress to be paid “while hardworking border security agents and other civil servants are furloughed” in a letter to the House administrator.
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.): Hern, who introduced a bill to hold members’ pay during shutdowns, said Monday he would donate his salary to several veterans’ groups.
Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.): Hill said in December he “cannot in good conscience accept pay while federal employees are not receiving theirs” and asked his salary be withheld.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii): Hirono announced in December she would donate her salary from the shutdown to food banks across Hawaii and noted that “More than 2,500 federal workers in Hawaii are either furloughed or working without pay during the holidays.”
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.): Hoeven told Forum News Service that he will donate his salary to the North Dakota National Guard Foundation.
Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas): Slamming the shutdown as “needless,” Hurd requested in December that his pay be withheld “while other federal employees suffer.”
Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio): Joyce requested in December that is pay be withheld, saying “If Congress can’t keep the government fully operational, we shouldn’t get paid. It’s that simple.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.): “In solidarity with government employees working for the American people without pay, furloughed workers, and taxpayers denied government services because of this shutdown, I’ve requested that my salary be withheld until the conclusion of the shutdown. I’m donating my pay from the December portion of the shutdown to charity,” the lawmaker wrote in a statement released the second week of January.
Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio): Latta wrote in a Facebook post last month that he had asked that his pay be withheld during the shutdown, arguing that members of Congress shouldn’t get salaries at a time when federal workers were not receiving pay.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.): Luria said Thursday she does not believe it is “fair or appropriate” for members of Congress to receive paychecks during a shutdown. She said as a 20-year Navy veteran, she has “firsthand knowledge of how government shutdowns threaten out military preparedness and readiness.”
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.): A co-sponsor of the No Budget, No Pay Act, Maloney requested in December that his pay be withheld.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.): “As long as our border security agents, air traffic controllers and TSA agents are not paid and their families not supported, I will not accept any salary,” Meadows wrote in December to the House administrator.
Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.): “If employees affected by this shutdown do not get paid, neither should members of Congress,” wrote in a Facebook post showing his letter to the House administrator.
Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.): O’Halleran in December vowed to forfeit his salary if the government shut down and slammed congressional leaders for “allowing partisan gridlock to get in the way of funding our government and preventing a shutdown yet again.”
Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas): Olson requested Wednesday that his pay be withheld, saying “Federal employees should not be held hostage to dysfunction & inability to solve the problem.”
Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.): Pappas, a former small business owner, asked Thursday for his salary to be withheld. “As someone who has run a small business, I could not imagine receiving a paycheck while any of my employees are working without pay. My first official act as a member of Congress is to reject a paycheck until Congress does its job and the government is re-opened,” Pappas, a freshman congressman, tweeted.
Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.): Rose, another freshman congressman, said he would donate any pay earned during the shutdown. “This shutdown is an insult to all Americans who work their heart out every day b/c unlike Congress they cant afford to act like children,” he tweeted Sunday.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.): Rosen said she would donate her salary to state organizations “aimed at helping survivors of sexual and domestic violence.” Authorization for the Violence Against Women Act lapsed with the shutdown.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.): Noting that he has done the same in previous shutdowns, Schneider said in December he would return his salary to the Treasury Department. Schneider is a co-sponsor of the Hold Congress Accountable Act, which would suspend pay for members of congress during shutdowns.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.): A former federal employee herself, Sherrill requested Tuesday that her pay be withheld. “I came here to govern, not engage in partisan politics at the expense of hardworking Americans,” Sherrill, a freshman congresswoman, tweeted.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.): Slotkin, who oversaw the furloughs of hundreds of personnel at the Pentagon during a past shutdown, requested Thursday that her pay be withheld.
Rep. Ross Spano (R-Fla.): “I would support legislation forcing members of Congress to forfeit pay during any government shutdown, and I pledge not to take a paycheck until this impasse is resolved,” Spano said in a statement Thursday.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.): Stefanik requested the day the shutdown began that her pay be withheld.
Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas): “Members of Congress should not be paid when critical federal employees, including our border patrol agents, are denied their paychecks,” Taylor tweeted Thursday, attaching with his letter to the House administrator.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.): “I will not accept a paycheck until the men and women providing national security functions are compensated,” Waltz posted on Facebook Friday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.): Warren announced Tuesday she will donate her salary during the shutdown to HIAS, an organization that supports refugees.
Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.): “Because members of Congress continue to receive their pay during these shutdowns even though our constituents do not, please withhold my pay until an appropriations agreement has been reached and other federal employees begin receiving their pay,” Wexton, a freshman congresswoman wrote in a letter to the House administrator.
Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.): A spokesperson confirmed that Yarmuth has donated his post-tax salary every year since he was elected in 2007 and will do so for 2018.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.): “It’s crazy to me that Members of Congress get paid while other federal employees do not,” Zeldin said in a December statement. “I instructed the House Chief Administrative Officer to withhold my pay until this partial government shutdown ends.”
– Updated on Jan. 10 at 3:27 p.m.