A leaked White House draft memo suggests that the Trump administration is actively considering stiffing as many as 750,000 federal workers and denying them compensation while furloughed amid the ongoing government shutdown, according to an Axios report published Tuesday.
As many as 750,000 federal workers are projected to be furloughed for every day of the shutdown – now in its seventh day – according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
While a 2019 law guarantees furloughed federal employees retroactive pay, the leaked White House draft memo – described to Axios by three insiders – reveals that the Trump administration has a different interpretation of the law that may allow furloughed federal workers to be denied backpay.
"Does this law cover all these furloughed employees automatically?” said a senior White House official, speaking with Axios on the condition of anonymity. “The conventional wisdom is: yes, it does. Our view is: no, it doesn't.”
The 2019 law is known as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA), and was signed into law during the previous government shutdown in 2018-19, the longest shutdown in United States’ history.
What White House officials have zeroed in on, however, is a provision in the amended version of the law, which stipulated that retroactive pay for furloughed federal workers would be provided “subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse,” which officials are considering interpreting as meaning backpay would have to be appropriated by Congress.
"If it [GEFTA] was self-executing, why did Congress do that?” the White House official said, referring to Congress’ amendment to the law. “It's precedent, [and any other interpretation is] ridiculous."
Critics, however, say the White House’s new interpretation was off base, including Nekeisha Campbell, a labor attorney with a Washington, D.C.-based law firm.
“There is no legal authority to support that interpretation of the statute,” Campbell said, speaking with Axios.
“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. The law here is quite clear. The caveat is, if you follow the law.”
Still, White House officials were adamant that the law remained unclear, and another official — described by Axios as a “senior administration official” — was quick to blame Democrats for the issue even materializing.
“This would not have happened if Democrats voted for the clean [continuing resolution],” the senior administration official told Axios.