Speaker Johnson: No Standalone Vote for Military Pay During Shutdown

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Oct. 8 struck down the possibility of his chamber voting on a standalone measure to keep paying the military during the government shutdown.

Instead, he pointed to the continuing resolution, which remains held up in the Senate, reiterating that the House of Representatives had already voted on such a bill.

“Of course, we want to pay our troops and our air traffic controllers and our Border Patrol agents, TSA, and everybody else,” Johnson said. “We did have that vote. The House—I keep saying—the House did its job. We did that almost three weeks ago.”

The speaker recognized that House Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), were “clamoring back” to the Capitol to have another vote and wanted to have on record that they are in favor of paying for the troops. But he dismissed such a move as a show vote and argued that the Democrats had already made their position known.

“Every Democrat in the House except one voted against it,” he said of the continuing resolution. “They voted that they did not want the troops to be paid. They did not want TSA agents to be paid. They did not want air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, and all the rest. They live with that vote. They made that decision. The House is done. The ball is now in the Senate’s court.”

“It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes,” he added.

Johnson’s latest comments are contrary to the position he expressed on Oct. 7 during a joint press conference with Senate GOP leaders. Then, the Speaker of the House said he was open to a possible standalone vote, which he said had been done in the past.

“We want to make sure our troops are paid,” Johnson said on Oct. 7. “I have colleagues like Congresswoman Jim Higgins (R) of Virginia, who has a big military district. He’s already filed legislation to pay our troops. We’re looking forward to processing all this as soon as we gather everybody back up.”

Oct. 8 marked the eighth day of the government shutdown, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his fellow Democrats continuing to vote against the 24-page continuing resolution put forth by Republicans, which would keep the government funded through Nov. 21.

The Senate failed yet again to pass the continuing resolution on Oct. 8 with a vote of 54–45. Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), and Angus King (I-Maine) sided with Republicans in supporting the bill while Sen Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted against it, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) didn’t vote.

A competing bill put forth by the Democrats also failed by a vote of 47–52.

A minimum vote of 60 is required for the bill to pass the Senate.

If the federal government does not reopen by Oct. 13, 1.3 million active-duty members of the military, hundreds of thousands of active members of the National Guard, and civilians employed by the Defense Department will miss their first paycheck scheduled for that week.

Jacob Burg and Arjun Singh contributed to this report.