A surprise move killed a Social Security bill sought by Louisiana public employees. What's next?
WASHINGTON – In a surprise move on election night, a pair of lawmakers quietly killed a U.S. House bill to restore Social Security benefits to many public employees in Louisiana and other states who have paid into the system — an effort Congressional leaders vow to revive.
Last Tuesday, as all eyes were on the polls, two members of the far-right Freedom Caucus slipped in a vote that effectively killed the bill by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, and Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia, that had been scheduled for a House floor vote this week.
The Social Security Fairness Act, HR 82, would eliminate the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset sections of the Social Security law. Those provisions curb benefits for about 2.8 million public employees nationwide, including 90,000 in Louisiana.
Twenty-six states in the 1980s fell under those two provisions when they opted not to take out Social Security taxes for their public employees who were covered by their government pensions. But many of those public employees — including Louisiana police officers, firefighters, teachers and state government employees — also work at other times in the private sector, where they are subject to Social Security taxes. Upon retirement, their Social Security benefits are docked by what their pensions pay, meaning they are unable to collect some or all of their Social Security benefits.
Efforts over the past 40 years have been made to change those Social Security policies. Graves and Spanberger, both leaving Congress at the end of the year, were able to cobble together a bill that overcame the opposition to the changes.
“Even politicians should feel guilty about 40 years of stealing retirement benefits from police officers, teachers, firefighters, and other public servants,” Graves said Monday. “For the first time ever, we are going to give Congress a chance to make things right and support our bill.”
The legislation has 330 cosponsors in the 435-seat House, including the entire Louisiana House delegation. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, signed on as a co-sponsor even though he is a member of the Freedom Caucus.
Scalise vows to revive bill
The House leadership, which includes House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, are working through options for what different staffers separately call a “course correction” to what the two Freedom Caucus members did.
Scalise on Monday called the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset provisions “flawed and unfair,” saying they have “harmed thousands of public servants in Louisiana and around the country.”
“It must be fixed, which is why I announced we would be voting on this issue this week,” he said.
The most likely avenue for bringing the measure back to life is a procedure called “suspension of the rules.”
The Freedom Caucus maneuver spiked the bill itself. Still lingering, however, is a rule for consideration of a special call for a vote on the measure by the full House.
With time running out on the 118th Congress, Graves and Spanberger in September sought a “discharge petition,” which can force a floor vote before the full House on a bill bottled up in a congressional committee. Discharge petitions are rare, usually used unsuccessfully by party members in the minority.
But backers of the Social Security petition gathered the needed 218 signatures in a matter of days. Scalise in September said he would use the rules at leadership’s discretion to bring the bill for a floor vote.
A vote under the suspension of the rules, which could happen as early as Tuesday, would revive the currently dead bill and allow for a vote by the full House — provided that two-thirds of the members present agree.
Killed in an unusual way
What happened Election Day was unusual. When members of Congress are back home, campaigning or otherwise out of town doing what they dub “district work,” both chambers convene briefly each day for “pro forma sessions.”
Members who live in nearby Maryland and Virginia come in briefly, call a pro forma session into order, push some necessary papers around, adjourn and go home. By tradition, they’re not supposed to take up bills without the permission of the House speaker and the House minority leader. The Freedom Caucus members didn’t have such permission.
At 5 p.m. on Election Day, the Capitol was all but empty when the House convened its pro forma session. After the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer, former Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Bob Good, R-Virginia, moved to table HR 82 by unanimous consent. At that moment he and current Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris, R-Maryland, were the only members attending. Harris was presiding.
Roll Call, the only media outlet on hand, reported that House Parliamentarian Jason Smith was overheard saying, “The chair will not entertain the gentlemen’s request.”
After four minutes of discussion at the podium, punctuated with a parliamentarian’s finger stabbing an open rules book, Harris as presiding officer noted no objection and tabled the legislation. He then adjourned the pro forma session, which lasted about seven minutes.
The move has drawn fire.
“Your conduct was shameful and an affront to the people of the district,” the Maryland State Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police wrote Harris on Nov. 6. “You actively sought to deprive your fellow representatives with of the right to consider a very popular and bipartisan bill, which they should view as a grave breach of trust. You should be sanctioned.”
Cost an issue
Even if the bill is revived and approved by the House, passage into law is not assured.
The Senate has 63 cosponsors on a similar bill, enough to pass it. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated its cost at $196 billion over the next 10 years.
The money would be taken out of the trust fund into which most current employees and their employers contribute. The fund is expected to be exhausted in nine years. The additional payments sought by Graves and others would cause that to happen about six months earlier, the CBO said.
If the fund were to run out, all Social Security participants would see their benefits drop by about 25%.