Getting Democrats and Republicans to agree on budgets was difficult even during the most harmonious of times. But it has proven particularly challenging since 2011, when Congress and the White House have been controlled by opposing parties. At times it seems that nothing can get the two sides to come together to resolve their spending differences, with vicious disagreements on funding for everything from the military to Planned Parenthood.

No Budget, No Pay

The “No Budget, No Pay Act” would change that by hitting Members of Congress where it hurts: their own personal wallets. The legislation would withhold pay from Members of Congress if they fail to pass a budget.

The legislation has been introduced in several different forms so far this session: S. 39 was introduced by Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), H.R. 4814 was introduced by Rep. Robert Wittman (R-VA1), H.R. 174 also by Wittman, H.R. 673 called the “Congressional Pay for Performance Act” was introduced by Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-PA12), and H.R. 187 was introduced by Rep. Jim Cooper (R-TN5).

Cooper’s version has a dead-even 18 Democrats and 18 Republicans as cosponsors — a rarity in this polarized environment. Rothfus’s version has more Democratic cosponsors than Republicans, even though it was a GOP representative who first introduced it.

Congress has primarily relied on stopgap spending measures the past few years, which temporarily extend current funding levels for a few weeks or a few months, without making meaningful policy changes as events or priorities may warrant. Sometimes they’re not even able to do that — the government went into shutdown in 2013 for the first time in 17 years, and came hours away from another shutdown in 2011.

Outlook

A similar version of the bill was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last session in early 2013, stipulating that Members of Congress would not get paid unless they passed a budget by April 15 of that year. However, they did pass a budget on March 26, so that provision never took effect.

Who opposes this bill? GovTrack Insider was unable to locate any Members of Congress criticizing the bill on policy grounds. Doing so would surely be a public relations disaster for any Member of Congress who dared to do so, since to many it would appear an argument for full pay even in case of incompetence.

However, some members on both sides of the aisle feel safer opposing the bill on constitutional grounds, running afoul of the 27th Amendment. That amendment states that any change in congressional pay cannot take effect until after the subsequent election.

It was originally intended to prevent Congress from voting itself instant pay raises — since if those raises couldn’t take effect until after the next election, members might run the risk of losing in November and accidentally approving a pay raise for their election opponents! But some experts are unsure of whether Congress would be barred from voting itself a pay decrease before the next election. The issue hasn’t come up since Congress last voted itself a pay decrease in 1933 during the Great Depression.

Currently, none of the bills have received a vote in their chambers yet. There is clearly enough support for the idea, though, considering it passed both the House and Senate (controlled at the time by different parties) in 2013. And even if it passes, perhaps the lack of pay won’t hurt most members of Congress too badly — more than half of Congress are millionaires.