A draft of a memo from the White House revealed furloughed federal employees may not get back pay due to the government shutdown.
Three sources spoke with Axios about the memo.
Withholding back pay would put pressure on Senate Democrats to end the shutdown, the outlet reported.
House memo described to Axios by three sources.
The blame game has started.
“This would not have happened if Democrats voted for the clean CR,” one senior administration official said.
This new memo goes against the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 signed by President Donald Trump during the last government shutdown. That shutdown which lasted a record 35 days.
GEFTA has been interpreted as ensuring furloughed workers would automatically be compensated after future shutdowns.
Now, the White House memo from the Office of Management and Budget asserts GEFTA has been misconstrued since it was amended nine days later, on Jan. 25, 2019.
“Does this law cover all these furloughed employees automatically? The conventional wisdom is: Yes, it does. Our view is: No, it doesn’t,” a senior White House official said.
The new viewpoint from OMB contradicts what the Council of Economic Advisers this month and the Office of Personnel Management last month — furloughed workers should get automatic back pay after the shutdown.
One senior White House official said the OMB Trump’s all.
“OMB is in charge,” the person said.
The amended GEFTA added furloughed workers shall be compensated “subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse” or shutdown.
The White House interprets this as that money needs to be appropriated by Congress.
“The joint resolution containing that amendment to the law specified that the U.S. government would pay ‘obligations incurred’ during that 2019 shutdown,” Axios reported.
“If it [GEFTA] was self-executing” in future shutdowns, “why did Congress do that? It’s precedent,” the White House official said, adding any other interpretation is “ridiculous.”
Those represent federal workers have stated the White House is misreading the intent of the law.
“There is no legal authority to support that interpretation of the statute,” said Nekeisha Campbell, labor attorney with Alan Lescht & Associates.
“When the language of a statute is plain, courts must apply it except in the rare circumstance when there is a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, or when a literal application would frustrate the statute’s purpose or lead to an absurd result,” Campbell continued.
“The law here is quite clear. The caveat is, if you follow the law,” Sam Berger, senior fellow at the Center for Policy and Budget Priorities, said.
He said the amended language was a recognition of the appropriations process, not a restriction on compensating furloughed workers.
“This is not being done simply as a pain-point for Democrats,” a second senior administration official said. “We’re seeking clarity. We believe the existing language is unclear. And the administration is looking for clarity.”
OMB Director Russ Vought spoke of how the administration could do mass firings of federal workers as a consequence of the shutdown. Critics say this would be illegal.
Vought announced after the shutdown started that the administration is “withholding as much as $28 billion in infrastructure and energy-related projects in mostly Democratic states and cities, including New York City, home to the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate,” per Axios.
A Trump adviser said Congress — where the GOP is in the majority — is deferring more to Trump while at the same time. the Supreme Court is empowering the president with its rulings.
“Trump will take his chances in court,” an adviser said. “Why not?”
