Senate Passes Resolution to Withhold Pay During Future Government Shutdowns

U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution Thursday directing the secretary of the Senate to withhold senators' pay during any government shutdown that affects one or more agencies. The measure, sponsored by Sen.

Will take effect the day after the Nov. 3 general election. Withheld pay would be released once funding is restored. It does not apply to the House. Senators earn an annual salary of $174,000, while leaders of either party can earn over $193,000.

The Constitution stipulates that lawmakers must be paid, and they have continued to receive salaries during past shutdowns even as federal workers went without paychecks. Two shutdowns in the past year created significant financial hardship for tens of thousands of federal workers, particularly at the Department of Homeland Security.

The department reopened last month after a 76-day partial shutdown, the longest agency funding lapse in history.

A 43-day lapse of the entire federal government occurred a few months before the DHS shutdown and was the longest such closure on record. Kennedy addressed the chamber Wednesday ahead of the vote. “Shutting down government should not be our default solution to our refusal to work out our issues and our differences,” he said in a floor speech.

““There’s a very strong undercurrent of animosity among some of my friends in the House. It’s quickly becoming like two kids fighting in the back of a minivan.” — Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. Kennedy told reporters the same day that he pushed the resolution to ensure “shared sacrifice” during shutdowns. He added that the measure does not go as far as he would like but that it is a start. Asked why it excludes the House, Kennedy said “the House’s business is the House’s business.” When the full government shutdown began in October amid a dispute over health care subsidies, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., proposed a constitutional amendment to require members of Congress to forfeit their paychecks when the government is closed. “If members of Congress had to forfeit their pay during government shutdowns, there would be fewer shutdowns and they would end quicker,” Graham said at the time. He described his legislation as the most “constitutionally sound” way to address the issue. Lawmakers in previous shutdowns have often pledged to forgo their paychecks while federal workers went unpaid. The U.S. Capitol is seen from Pennsylvania Avenue on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Washington. The resolution passed with bipartisan support one day after Kennedy’s floor remarks and two days after he appeared at a Senate subcommittee hearing on the fiscal year 2027 budget request for law enforcement agencies.”