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Senate Republicans’ gamble to inflict pain on themselves to thwart future shutdowns just got an unlikely backer: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The upper chamber is set to vote on Sen. John Kennedy’s, R-La., resolution on Wednesday that would prevent senators from getting a paycheck during a government shutdown. It’s a tool that Republicans hope will give them leverage in preventing Democrats from again shuttering the government in the fall.
And Schumer, who has led Democrats through two shutdowns in the last year, plans to support it.
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“I’m going to vote for it,” Schumer said. “And I think it has a lot of support.”
Kennedy’s resolution would direct the Secretary of the Senate to withhold lawmakers’ pay until a shutdown is resolved. A rank-and-file senator earns $174,000 per year, while a leader of either party can earn over $193,000 per year.
His resolution would only pertain to the Senate, too. However, it wouldn’t take effect until after the November midterm elections, and some Republicans fear that Schumer and Democrats will again shut the government down before voters hit the polls.
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Still, with the blessing of Schumer and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who teed up the measure for a vote earlier this week, it’s likely to pass.
That could lessen the desire of lawmakers to thrust the government into yet another shutdown in the next few months as Congress is still reeling from the growing frequency of closures, and the messes that they leave behind.
The latest partial shutdown lasted 76 days, the longest in U.S. history, and was spurred by Democrats’ demands for stringent reforms to immigration operations in the country. Last year, Democrats refused to fund the government for 43 days in pursuit of an extension to now-expired Obamacare tax credits.
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Republicans are now sprinting through the budget reconciliation process to shore up loose ends from the previous shutdown and fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for the next three and a half years.
Thune noted that the only reason Republicans turned to that option was because of Democrats’ refusal to fund those agencies, but still hoped that Kennedy’s resolution could be the silver bullet to put an end to shutdowns in the future.
“And if this — passing this and applying it to senators, maybe it will provide an additional incentive to prevent Senate Democrats in the future from shutting the government down again,” Thune said.
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