These North Carolina members of Congress want their pay withheld during shutdown

WASHINGTON

Four of North Carolina’s 16 members of Congress requested their salaries be withheld while federal employees aren’t being paid during the government shutdown.

Several laws, including the 27th Amendment, require members of Congress to continue to receive a paycheck, even during a government shutdown. But all around lawmakers are government workers being told they won’t receive their paycheck, whether they’re being told to stay home or continue working.

Members of Congress do have options like declining and returning their pay, donating their salary to a charity or the Treasury, or requesting the House administrative office withhold their pay, though they would still be owed.

The latter is what North Carolina’s four members chose to do.

Democratic Reps. Don Davis and Valerie Foushee and Republicans Reps. Greg Murphy and Tim Moore sent letters to the House chief administrative officer making that request.

Murphy, of Greenville, put his request in first, the morning the government shut down. He sent a letter reading: “Please withhold my net pay until the appropriations agreement has taken effect.”

Davis, of Snow Hill, followed a few hours later, writing: “While the federal government remains shut down, I respectfully request that you withhold my pay as a member of Congress.”

Davis’ chief of staff, Hannah Spengler, explained his reasoning in a written statement to McClatchy.

“Congressman Davis has chosen to have his pay withheld during the shutdown, standing with federal workers and families facing uncertainty,” Spengler said.

Foushee, of Hillsborough, gave a longer explanation of her decision in her letter.

“Members of Congress should play by the same rules as the people they represent,” Foushee wrote. “Until Congress comes to a bipartisan resolution to this impasse, one that makes whole the people I represent in NC-04 and fully reopens the government, I firmly believe member pay should be withheld.”

Moore, of Kings Mountain, sent a letter with a similar tenor, though he blamed the shutdown on Democrats.

“It’s not right for members of Congress to receive pay while our troops go unpaid and hurricane recovery efforts in Western North Carolina are stalled,” Moore wrote in his letter.

There is a bill, filed by Virginia Rep. Robert Wittman, before the current Congress that would prevent lawmakers from receiving pay if they fail to pass a budget. None of North Carolina’s members have co-sponsored the bill.

Rep. Wiley Nickel, a Democrat from Cary, filed the same bill in 2023 before retiring from Congress, but it never made it to a vote.