Nevada lawmakers ready to give up paychecks, beds if government shuts down

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With a looming government shutdown less than 24 hours away, Nevada’s congressional delegation is scrambling to figure out how to contend with going dark on a practical basis.

Offices are still drawing up emergency plans to pare down their staff to the bare bones considered “essential” or “necessary” to keep basic constituent services running. But a few details are emerging about how they plan to ride it out.

A government shutdown, if it happens, means that some veterans, military families and federal workers will temporarily have to function without the paychecks that for many are their primary source of livelihood.

But what about the people responsible for the shutdown who can’t seem to come to a conclusion?

There’s no legal compulsion to give up your pay as a lawmaker, and all members of Congress are required to keep working through a shutdown so they can eventually take the budget vote that will be necessary to, you know, end it.

But if some of their constituents have to take a hit, Nevada’s members are saying they will, too, for as long as the shutdown lasts.

“I will not get paid if we shut down. I will not take my pay,” said Rep. Joe Heck, a Republican.

Neither will Republican Rep. Dean Heller.

“He will forgo his pay in the event of a government shutdown,” said Heller spokesman Stewart Bybee. “Congressman Heller believes it’s unfair for Members of Congress to receive their salary while our troops in the field will go without a paycheck.”

No pay was a provision of the “Government Shutdown Prevention Act,” the bill that said if the Senate didn’t eventually pass H.R. 1, it would become law (that can’t actually happen, but that’s beside this particular point). The House passed it last week on the back of most Republicans, including both Heller and Heck, who voted for the measure.

But Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley has been thinking about the issue for a while. She was an original cosponsor of HR 819, the Democrats’ shutdown prevention bill, which was never considered in the House but also would have prohibited members of Congress and the president from being paid during a shutdown.

She stressed the point by voting in favor of a motion to proceed last week that reiterated that message.

“The motion required the same thing as HR 819 — i.e., no pay during a shutdown,” said Berkley spokesman David Cherry, who said Berkley, too, would not take a check.

In the Senate, Republican Sen. John Ensign’s didn’t return a request for his stance emailed Thursday night. We’ll add to the blog when we know what he plans to do, but the Senate has already unanimously passed its own legislation preventing lawmakers and the president from drawing a paycheck.

Nevada’s — and the Senate’s — top Democrat, Harry Reid, who is in the negotiating room with the president and House Speaker John Boehner and has been pulling a series of very late nights trying to hash this out (a pace that we can only imagine will continue until this gets resolved), said he’ll pass on the check, too.

“If Republicans cave to their extreme Tea Party wing and force a government shutdown, I will join federal employees in forgoing a federal salary until compromise can be found,” Reid said. “I will continue working in the hopes that cooler heads will prevail.”

Pay though, isn’t the only issue the lawmakers have to work out in the next 24 hours.

While a shutdown resonates across the country, it doesn’t hit any place as tangibly as D.C., where almost everything depends on the federal government.

A shutdown is going to cause endless confusion for the thousands of furloughed federal workers, most of whom will be legally prohibited from answering their government-issued blackberries upon penalty of firing. So no word on how they plan to alert the city to get back to work.

It’s also bound to create a tragicomedy of sorts for Nevada tourists, who will be contending with closed museums and a roped-off National Mall (at least that’s what happened the last time). Cherry blossom viewing is still free.

Tourists aren’t the only ones scratching their heads to figure out what will be open.

There’s an especially pertinent concern as far as that goes for the Nevada delegation. While the Capitol stays open, it’s not yet clear that the Senate and House office buildings will. And two of Nevada’s representatives — Heck and Heller — sleep in their offices. So what they do if they shutter those doors, too?

“I’ve got some friends in the area that I can probably crash with if I need to,” Heck said.