LAS VEGAS (KLAS) -- Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen renewed her push Monday for a new law that would prohibit lawmakers in Washington from getting paid if they cannot pass a budget.
Congress narrowly avoided a government shutdown over the weekend, passing a late-night budget extension hours before the federal government ran out of money.
If no deal were in place before Sunday, federal workers would have faced furloughs, more than two million active-duty and reserve military troops would have had to work without pay and programs and services that Americans rely on would have begun to face shutdown disruptions.
The agreement keeping the government open drops aid to Ukraine, which was a sticking point among some Republicans. The majority in Congress want to continue to send aid to the European country amid its war with Russia, and agreed to take up the issue separately.
“If you work for the federal government, if you are an active-duty military, if you are a TSA officer or air traffic controller or others, you still want to be able to pay your bills, get your medication, all of those things,” Rosen said Monday. “Nobody should be holding you hostage, and I would urge my Republican friends in the house to talk to those extreme MAGA Republicans and get them to pay attention to the families in their districts.”
Congress will go through the budget-negotiating process again as their agreement expires in mid-November.
Rosen said she expected the Senate and House to continue doing their work to fund the government behind the Nov. 17 deadline.
If not, she hoped a bill, like the “No Budget, No Pay Act,” would encourage lawmakers to do their job of funding the federal government.
If passed, the law would bar members of Congress from getting paid until they reach a budget agreement. Lawmakers would also be barred from getting back pay.
“People are sick and tired of seeing this,” Rosen said. “If we don’t have a budget, members of Congress should not get a paycheck and they should not get backpay when we reopen the government. Hopefully, that will impact members of Congress to understand that we should stay, and we should do our jobs because people are counting on us.”
Rosen, widely viewed as a moderate Democrat in the Senate, faces re-election in 2024.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.