Senate Democrats block bill to pay essential workers during shutdown | Fox News
By: Leo BricenoElizabeth Elkind (Fox News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Consequences of government shutdown are becoming 'very real': Senate majority leader
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., discusses the 'political game' Democrats are playing with the government shutdown on 'The Story.'
Democrats blocked a Republican-led attempt to provide essential government workers with paychecks amid an ongoing, 23-day shutdown, calling the bill overly selective and incomplete.
That bill, proposed by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Todd Young, R-Ind., failed in a 54-45 vote, where 60 votes were needed to advance the bill over the threat of a filibuster.
Only three Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, voted with Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., turns to an aide during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, June 3, 2025. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
In addition to compensating federal employees and military personnel during the current shutdown, the bill would also extend relief to future instances where funding bills aren't in effect.
"For fiscal year 2026, and any fiscal year thereafter, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary to provide standard rates of pay, allowances, pay differentials, benefits, and other payments on a regular basis to excepted employees," the bill reads.
SENATE STALLS ON SHUTDOWN VOTE AMID WARNING FURLOUGHED WORKERS MAY LOSE PAY
Johnson had pitched his bill as a long-term solution.
"I just hope, on a nonpartisan basis, we do something that makes sense around here for once," Johnson said ahead of the bill's consideration.
"With Democrats continuing the Schumer Shutdown, they should at least agree to pay all the federal employees that are forced to continue working. The 2025 Shutdown Fairness Act is a permanent fix that will ensure excepted workers and our troops are paid during a shutdown," Johnson said.
Other Republicans blasted Democrats for voting against the bill.
"It means Democrats don't care," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. "We know this is going to end sometime. The question is when. I guess it will depend on how much carnage the Democrats want to create. To me, they are in a box canyon, and they can't figure out how to get out."
Essential federal employees have been asked to continue working since the government entered a shutdown on Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass spending legislation to begin the 2026 fiscal year. Republicans have advanced a short-term spending extension that would open the government through Nov. 21. Democrats have repeatedly rejected that proposal though, demanding that Congress first consider an extension to expiring COVID-19-era supplemental funding for Obamacare health insurance subsidies.
Republicans, who maintain that the health insurance subsidies are unrelated to the government's short-term funding needs, have rejected those demands out of hand.
Democrats in the Senate have voted 12 times to defeat the stopgap bill.
JOHNSON WARNS US 'BARRELING TOWARD ONE OF THE LONGEST SHUTDOWNS' IN HISTORY
Sen. Ron Johnson talks with reporters in the U.S. Capitol after the House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on May 22, 2025.(Tom Williams/Getty Images)
The shutdown looks poised to continue with no resolution in sight, prompting lawmakers to worry about key areas that are feeling the shutdown's effects more acutely. The Johnson-Young supplemental package was the most recent attempt to provide a limited basis for relieving some of that pain.
Ahead of Thursday's vote, Republicans in the House of Representatives appeared open to considering the Johnson-Young bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told House Republicans during a lawmaker-only call on Tuesday that his chamber would be "prepared to act" if the bill passed the Senate, Fox News Digital was told. Johnson has repeatedly said he would give lawmakers 48 hours' notice to return to Washington before any votes but has largely signaled he will keep the House out of session until Senate Democrats pass the GOP's funding bill.
Johnson also said on the call that he was skeptical the bill would get enough Senate Democratic support to pass.
"If they oppose the Ron Johnson bill in the Senate, it will be absolutely clear that they are simply using the military and air traffic control and law enforcement and all these other personnel as pawns for their political efforts," Johnson said, Fox News Digital was told.
But other lawmakers had hesitations about partially reopening the government, offering relief to some workers and not others. That was the concern of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ahead of Thursday's vote.
"I have a concern about picking and choosing among all the federal workers," Blumenthal said.
"I'm fine to support it. I think we need to pay our military, but I want to define and limit it in a way that provides pay to essential workers who serve our public safety and our national defense," Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal voted against the measure.
Democrats in the House of Representatives signaled similar lines of opposition to the idea behind the Johnson-Young bill.
"It's not legislation that I support, because it appears to be more like a political ploy to pick and choose, giving Donald Trump discretion [over] which employees should be compensated, and which employees should not be compensated. All employees should be compensated and that will happen when we reopen the government," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Monday.
Senate Democrats also defeated other pieces of legislation that would open portions of the government. Last week, Democrats in the Senate voted against a 2026 defense spending bill — one of the 12 year-long bills normally used to fund the government.
Aside from the Johnson-Young bill, the Senate will not consider other pieces of spending legislation on Thursday. Senators are scheduled to leave Washington, D.C., on Thursday and will return at the beginning of next week.
Leo Briceno is a politics reporter for the congressional team at Fox News Digital. He was previously a reporter with World Magazine.
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There are 3 Patriotic democrat Senators, the rest care more about Illegals healthcare than paying Americans for their hard work.
Ya get healthcare for the Illegal Aliens and the Cartels are thrilled 'cause the Dems/Libs are paying for their drugs/etc passages with the new coyotes.
Get that illegal money in to help pay for the Dems/Libs sponsorships.
Since Democrats have shut down government, Republicans should have plenty of free time to take Donald Trump to the woodshed.
Democrats got no spine. Republicans got no balls.
Since the government is shut down citizens should not have to pay taxes during the shutdown.
That would make it hard to give everyone back pay for not going to work.
To me the bigger question is: Why would democrats vote against giving people now, and into the future for all shutdowns pay, unless they were willing to sacrifice Americans for leverage to get their pet projects funded? Do they really think that the American people are nothing more than bargaining chips for their power grabs?
Oh come on. Do you really think that either party cares about the American people other than how they vote?
One party voted to pay Americans now and for all future shutdowns, the other party voted to sacrifice their pawns for political gain.