S 3012 — Congress 119
Shutdown Fairness Act
Official source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/3012
Congress.gov subjects: Appropriations; Congressional operations and organization; Government employee pay, benefits, personnel management; Military personnel and dependents; Public contracts and procurement; Government Operations and Politics
Issues impacted: Taxes & Government Spending (taxonomy, high), Defense & National Security (ai, high), Labor & Employment (ai, high)
Official bill text (stored)
Plain-text extraction from Congress.gov text formats. Canonical source remains the official URL above. Full text is prioritized for bills with roll-call votes.
119 S3012 PCS: Shutdown Fairness Act U.S. Senate 2025-10-16 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain. II Calendar No. 191 119th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 3012 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES October 15, 2025 Mr. Johnson (for himself, Mr. Budd , Mr. Cassidy , Mr. Crapo , Mr. Cotton , Mr. Risch , Mr. Sullivan , and Mr. Young ) introduced the following bill; which was read the first time October 16, 2025 Read the second time and placed on the calendar A BILL To appropriate funds for pay and allowances of excepted Federal employees for periods of work performed during a lapse in appropriations, and for other purposes. 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Shutdown Fairness Act . 2. Appropriations (a) Definitions In this section— (1) the term agency means each authority of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States; (2) the term excepted employee — (A) means an employee of an agency who the head of that agency determines is an excepted employee or an employee performing emergency work, as those terms are defined by the Office of Personnel Management; and (B) includes— (i) a contractor who— (I) provides support to an employee described in subparagraph (A); and (II) is required to perform work during a lapse in appropriations, as determined by the head of the agency with respect to which the contractor provides support; and (ii) a member of the Armed Forces on active duty; and (3) the term excepted work means work performed by an excepted employee during a period during which interim or full-year appropriations for the applicable fiscal year are not in effect for the applicable agency. (b) Appropriations For fiscal year 2026, and any fiscal year thereafter, for any period during which interim continuing appropriations or full-year appropriations for that fiscal year are not in effect for an agency, there are appropriated to the head of the agency, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sums as are necessary to provide standard rates of pay, allowances, pay differentials, benefits, and other payments otherwise payable on a regular basis to excepted employees of the agency with respect to any period of excepted work performed by the excepted employees. (c) Termination Appropriations and funds made available and authority granted under subsection (b) shall be available to the head of an agency until whichever of the following first occurs: (1) The enactment into law of appropriations for the agency until the end of the applicable fiscal year (including a continuing appropriation) that provide amounts for the purposes for which amounts are made available under subsection (b). (2) The enactment into law of appropriations for the agency until the end of the applicable fiscal year (including a continuing appropriation) without any appropriation for such purposes. (d) Interim continuing appropriations Appropriations made available under subsection (b) may not be obligated by the head of an agency during any period during which continuing appropriations for the purposes for which amounts are made available under subsection (b) are in effect for the agency. (e) Charging to full-year appropriations Obligations or expenditures made by the head of an agency pursuant to subsection (b) shall be charged to the applicable appropriation for the agency whenever a regular appropriation bill or a measure making continuing appropriations until the end of the applicable fiscal year for the agency becomes law. (f) Retroactive effective date This Act shall take effect as if enacted on September 30, 2025. October 16, 2025 Read the second time and placed on the calendar
Plain-English summary
Confidence: high · Complexity: moderate · Model: grok-4.5
So picture a government shutdown: Congress hasn’t passed the usual funding bills, and a bunch of offices go dark. This bill—the Shutdown Fairness Act—says the folks who still have to show up should still get paid on time.
Here’s the deal. “Excepted” workers are the ones agency bosses tag as essential or emergency (think the rules the Office of Personnel Management already uses). That group also covers active-duty troops and certain contractors who have to keep supporting those workers. For 2026 and every year after, the bill automatically pulls money from the Treasury so those people get their normal pay, allowances, benefits, and the usual extras for the days they actually work while funding is lapsed. Once Congress finally passes a real spending bill, those payments just get charged against the regular accounts. It even reaches back like it started September 30, 2025.
Who’d notice? Military families, federal workers stuck on the job without a regular paycheck, and the contractors their agencies say must keep helping. Everybody else mostly hears about it only if a shutdown is already making headlines.
That’s the whole move: keep the checks coming for the people still working when the money runs out. The text doesn’t spin a big policy story beyond that pay setup.
Related issues
How a vote maps to positions
Impartial mapping: which issue position a Yea vs Nay advances. When a bill has multiple floor votes, each roll can have its own mapping. Bill-level entries (no roll listed) apply as a default when a roll has no specific map. Used for legislator alignment.
All rolls (bill default)
| Issue | Yea advances | Nay advances | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taxes & Government Spending | Budget process and fiscal rules | Status quo / reject this change | Yea backs automatic appropriations so excepted workers are paid during funding lapses; Nay keeps the prior no-new-pay-until-Congress-acts setup. |
| Labor & Employment | Stronger worker protections and standards | Status quo / reject this change | Yea guarantees on-time standard pay and benefits for employees required to work in a shutdown; Nay rejects that change. |
| Defense & National Security | Military personnel and quality of life | Status quo / reject this change | Yea expressly funds active-duty Armed Forces pay and allowances during lapses; Nay prefers not adopting that automatic pay rule. |