Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), the lead Senate Republican negotiator on a bill to pay key federal workers during the shutdown, says he has offered Democrats a proposal to pay all federal workers — essential and furloughed federal employees — while federal departments and agencies are shuttered.
Johnson told The Hill that he believes Senate GOP leadership supports his offer, but he says the proposal will be discussed in more detail at the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon Tuesday.
“Are they going to take ‘yes’ for an answer?” Johnson said of whether his Democratic colleagues would accept the latest offer.
“We’re willing to add furloughed workers,” he said, calling it a “big” concession.
“Pay them up front. They’re going to get paid anyway,” Johnson said, noting that under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 furloughed federal workers are guaranteed back pay for the time they miss on the job during a shutdown.
“We need to put that vote on the floor,” he said. “Get it all approved by the White House and our leadership.”
He said Republican senators would discuss it in more detail Tuesday afternoon.
“Hopefully that will be the conference position and we’ll start voting on this stuff,” he added.
Johnson emphasized that the bill he’s proposing would not “add to or detract from the president’s authority in terms of managing the workforce.”
In other words, it would not prohibit President Trump from laying off federal workers or restructuring the federal workforce.
Johnson said that there’s no way Trump would sign a bill that diminishes his authority, and noted that the courts are currently weighing legal challenges to Trump’s power to fire federal workers.
Asked if Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other members of the Senate GOP leadership have bought into his proposal, Johnson told The Hill: “I believe so.”
But he cautioned that, “we have to get the actual language and make sure that the White House doesn’t have a problem with it — I don’t think they would.”
Democrats last week blocked Johnson’s Shutdown Fairness Act, which would pay only essential workers, including military service members and air traffic controllers, during the shutdown.
It failed on a vote of 54-45, but three Democrats voted for it: Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). Ossoff is a top GOP political target in the 2026 midterm election.
Johnson’s concession to Democrats represents a significant move from his position last week, when he objected to two Democratic requests for unanimous consent to approve legislation to pay all federal workers during the length of the shutdown or who have missed paychecks so far.
He is negotiating with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the lead Democratic sponsor of one of those competing proposals.
Johnson last week rejected Van Hollen’s True Shutdown Fairness Act, saying the legislation was too complex to approve by unanimous consent.
Van Hollen argued on the Senate floor last week that federal workers should not have to suffer because of the stalemate on Capitol Hill over a House-passed proposal to fund the federal government through Nov. 21.
“We should not be punishing federal employees for something they had nothing to do with. They’re not responsible. They’re innocent bystanders,” the Maryland Democrat said.
A large group of Democrats co-sponsored Van Hollen’s bill, including Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, also co-sponsored it.
Johnson now says he is calling on Van Hollen to follow up on his remarks by making federal workers whole financially.
“Van Hollen’s saying we shouldn’t punish them for our dysfunction. Vote for the bill, then,” he said.
The key difference between the negotiators is language included in Van Hollen’s bill that would prevent the Trump administration from attempting to fire thousands of employees through Reductions in Force (RIFs) during the shutdown.
Van Hollen on Monday confirmed that he had been in talks over the weekend but declined to comment in detail on the substance of the competing proposals.
Democrats will be under heavy pressure to accept Johnson’s proposal after Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers, issued a statement on Monday urging Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution to end the shutdown.
The union represents 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers.
Federal employees last received partial paychecks on Oct. 10, Oct. 14 or Oct. 16, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
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