# Hold Congress Accountable Act: Plain Language Summary

This bill creates a financial penalty for members of Congress whenever the federal government shuts down. Specifically, for each day that a government shutdown occurs, every senator and representative would lose one day's worth of pay from their annual salary. So if a shutdown lasted ten days, members would collectively lose ten days of pay. The idea behind this is to give Congress financial incentive to reach budget agreements and avoid shutdowns, since they'd be directly affected by the consequences of their failure to pass spending bills.

The bill has two different rules depending on timing. For the current Congress (as of when the bill was introduced in 2021), any pay reductions would be temporarily held in an escrow account—basically frozen money—during the shutdown. However, members would get all that money back at the end of their term, which means the penalty wouldn't actually stick for current members. This workaround exists because of a constitutional rule that prevents Congress from changing its own members' pay during their current term. Starting after the 2022 elections, though, the rule changes: future members of Congress would permanently lose pay for shutdown days, with no money held in escrow to be returned later.

The bill defines a government shutdown as any situation where federal agencies run out of money because Congress failed to pass either regular budget bills or temporary funding extensions. This is a straightforward accountability measure—if Congress can't do its job of passing budgets on time, the members responsible would face a direct financial consequence. For average Americans, this doesn't directly change anything about how government works or what services you receive, but it does represent an attempt to create pressure on elected officials to avoid the disruptions and uncertainty that shutdowns cause.

Hold Congress Accountable Act

Schrader, Kurt

Hold Congress Accountable Act This bill withholds or eliminates the pay of Members of Congress during a government shutdown. Through the day of the general election in November 2022, any salary earned by Members during a government shutdown must be held in escrow and released on the last day of the 117th Congress. After the November 2022 general election, a Member shall not be paid for any day during which the government is shut down.