On the eighth day of the federal government shutdown, U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat representing the state’s southern 2nd Congressional District, led a letter to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) highlighting the looming threat of missed paychecks for military personnel.
The letter, co-led by U.S. Rep. Derek Tran (D-CA) and co-signed by 75 other House Democrats, notes that if Congress doesn’t act by Oct. 15, “nearly three million military families will miss their next paycheck. That’s unacceptable — our military families and troops deserve better.” That includes 22,000 active duty and reserve personnel in New Mexico, according to a news release from Vasquez’s office.
In a statement, Vasquez said that the country’s “troops selflessly serve and defend our country every single day, and they deserve to be paid on time for their work. I’m calling on Speaker Johnson to do what’s right for our military families and get Republicans back to Washington to vote to pay our servicemen and women. There’s no excuse for inaction, because when it comes to paying our troops, there is no room for partisan politics.”
The bipartisan Pay Our Troops Act would ensure services members, along with civilian employees and contractors, receive pay during the shutdown. Vasquez’s letter notes that that Congress passed a similar bill during the 2013 shutdown. Doing so, the letter says, shows “Congress can come together for the benefit of our service members even while disagreeing on other matters.”
Johnson, however, on Wednesday rejected voting on a stand-alone bill to provide paychecks to active duty military members during the shutdown, and said if Democrats want to ensure salaries for federal workers, they should vote to advance the stopgap spending bill.
“They live with that vote. They made that decision. The House is done,” Johnson said at a morning press conference. “The ball is now in the Senate’s court. It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes. We did it. We sent the product over.”
President Donald Trump, however, in comments from the White House later in the day, indicated he supported a stand-alone bill to provide pay for military members during the shutdown, saying: “Yeah, that probably will happen.”