Speaker Mike Johnson of the House of Representatives indicated that the House might reconvene to pass emergency legislation aimed at paying troops during the government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, was not willing to consider such an approach. The unusual disagreement between these two top congressional leaders occurred in front of cameras on Capitol Hill as the shutdown entered its second week. The House has been out of session as Johnson tries to pressure Senate Democrats to approve the GOP-led stopgap funding bill his chamber already passed. But he opened the door to calling members back to vote on standalone legislation paying troops, who could miss paychecks on Oct. 15, or air traffic controllers, who could miss their first checks Friday.
Johnson said, ‘I’m certainly open to that. We’ve done it in the past. We want to make sure that our troops are paid.’ However, Thune, who has consistently stated that it’s the Democrats’ responsibility to pass the seven-week House stopgap, interjected after Johnson spoke, saying, ‘Honestly, you don’t need that.’ Thune further noted that there are certain constituencies that would be negatively impacted by the shutdown but emphasized that the simplest way to end it is to get the government open. Johnson then spoke again to say the priority should be to open the, and that Democrats could do it quickly. He added that any plan to pay members of the military would have to pass by Oct. 13 in order to process the paychecks on time.