House Democrats press Johnson to bring Pay Our Troops Act to the floor early next week
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) rejected Democrats’ push to reconvene early next week to vote on a bill that would ensure troops get paid on Oct. 15.
House Democrats are calling on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to bring lawmakers back to Washington early next week to pass a bill ensuring that service members, Defense Department civilians and Coast Guard personnel receive their Oct. 15 paychecks, which they will miss if the shutdown continues.
In an Oct. 8 letter to Johnson, obtained by Federal News Network, Reps. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) and Derek Tran (D-Calif.) urged the House speaker to bring the Pay Our Troops Act of 2026 to the House floor for a vote before next Wednesday.
“Congress must work across the aisle and in good faith to end this shutdown, find common ground, protect Americans’ health care, and ensure there is no undue harm to our service members and their families,” the lawmakers wrote.
“While negotiations to re-open the government continue, we encourage you to bring bipartisan, commonsense legislation to the floor to ensure that military service members, as well as civilian personnel and contractors, will continue to receive pay during a government shutdown,” they added.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) introduced the Pay Our Troops Act in September to ensure continued pay and benefits for armed services departments, including the Coast Guard, civilian employees and contractors in the event of a shutdown. The bill, however, has yet to advance out of committee.
Meanwhile, in 2013, the Pay Our Military Act was introduced in the House, passed by the Senate and signed into law in a matter of days right before government funding lapsed.
The lawmakers cited the 2013 legislation in their letter, noting that “there is precedent and a record that shows Congress can come together for the benefit of our service members even while disagreeing on other matters.”
“We have an obligation to take care of our service members and asking them to stand guard without pay is wrong. At a time when one in four military families are already facing food insecurity and struggling to make ends meet, we cannot afford to let dysfunction in Washington hurt our service members and their families,” the lawmakers wrote.
During the most recent government shutdown that began in December 2018 and lasted 34 days, the Defense Department had already been funded through supplemental appropriations, so military personnel continued to be paid. The Department of Homeland Security, however, had not been funded, which left Coast Guard members working without pay.
More than 70 other Democrats signed onto the letter.
Johnson said Wednesday that the House already “had that vote.”
“It’s called the continuing resolution,” Johnson said. “House Democrats are clamoring to get back here and have another vote because some of them want to get on record and say they’re for paying the troops. We already had that vote. Every Republican and at least one Democrat had the common sense to say, ‘Of course, we want the government to stay in operation. Of course, we want to pay our troops and our air traffic controllers and our Border Patrol agents, TSA and everybody else.’ We did have that vote in the House. I keep saying the House did its job,” Johnson said.
The debate over the stalled bill comes as President Donald Trump has threatened to lay off federal workers who are currently furloughed due to the lapse in government funding. The White House has also questioned whether those employees should receive backpay.
Debra Robinson, a Defense Department employee and executive board member of the National Association of Government Employees who worked through the 2013 and 2018–2019 shutdowns, told Federal News Network this one feels “a lot different.”
“This time, I think the rules were a lot different, because they really wanted to shut people down, and it’s even a worry, even though the law says that we’re going to get paid when the budget is passed,” Robinson said.
“We are pawns in this disagreement,” she added.
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