HEY IOWA? WONDERING WHAT YOUR US HOUSE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DID ON THEIR TWO MONTHS OF VACATION? While you’re wondering, ask yourself how much they got paid for not going to work?
Sending THANKS to Author Barry Piatt for THIS WEEK’S LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAINS: Iowa’s US House “no show” delegation should not accept any pay for the 54 days the U.S. House refused to meet to avoid voting on release of the Epstein files.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) —-Iowa’s “no show” congressional delegation should not accept – and should return – the nearly $29,000 each of them could collect in pay for the 54 days the House refused to meet in order to avoid voting on the release of the Epstein files.
The US House finally came back into session this past week after hiding for 54 days to avoid a vote that would likely force release of the Epstein files
Let me say at the outset: This is a separate matter from whether they should be paid for the 43-day government shutdown, a period that falls within the House’s separate “no show” performance period.
Each of Iowa’s four representatives asked that their pay be “withheld,” and that they not receive paychecks during what turned out to be a 43-day shutdown of the federal government.
Their requests, however, left open the matter of accepting back pay once the shutdown ended. They did not specifically address it.
Traditionally, federal workers do receive retroactive back pay to make up for paychecks withheld during a government shutdown.
If the point of the request by Iowa House members that their pay be “withheld” during the shutdown was to be treated the same as other government workers, then their taking retroactive back pay is not only possible, but likely.
I’ve not found any place where they have addressed the back pay issue publicly.
But all of that is unrelated to the question of whether they should be paid for the longer 54-day period the House deliberately refused to meet in order to block the release of the Epstein files.
They should not.
To be clear, it is the deliberate refusal of the House to meet for 54 days, which includes the 43-day government shutdown period, to avoid voting on releasing the Epstein files that is the focus of this column.
Yes, we’ve now reached the point with today’s Republicans that keeping their various ongoing shutdowns of government operations straight , separate, and untangled has become a chore.
Iowans in the US. House should immediately give back any money they were paid for the nearly two months they were expected to be meeting in Congress, but were instead in a panic-driven flight from their duties in Congress.
Nor should they accept any retroactive back pay for the 34-day shutdown time period that fell within the 54-day “no show” window.
First, how much money are we talking about? A lot. Let’s do the math:
- Members of the US House of Representatives are paid $174,000 a year.
- The emergency “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” break lasted 54 days, just shy of 2 full months.
- Divide $174,000 by 12 to get the gross amount of 1 monthly paycheck: $14,500.00
- Double that monthly amount to get the total gross amount for two months: $29,000.
That’s a lot of money for not doing your job – or even showing up for it.
To get a rough total estimate of what it cost taxpayers just in members’ pay for the “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” congressional break, multiply $29,000 times the total number of members of the House – 435 voting members, plus 5 non-voting delegates – and you come up with $12,760,000 for the two month total in salaries paid to House members during that time.
The reason for the break only strengthens the argument for those who backed it to return their $29,000 to the Treasury. There was no good reason for the House to be out of session for 54 days. They were merely protecting Trump from the contents of the files of the Jeffrey Epstein criminal investigation. They stopped the House’s work for nearly two months to do that.
Taxpayers should pay for that? Hardly.
As noted previously, Republicans in Congress were failing to fund the government while the House was in its “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” break.
This also makes the point that while House members were hiding under a rock in their respective home districts, it wasn’t exactly like there was no work that needed to be done under the Capitol dome. There was plenty!
For 54 days Iowa’s “no show” House delegation could have been working hard to overcome the obstacles and pass a federal budget or Continuing Resolution..
Instead, they didn’t even show up for work.
For 54 days, they could have used this unexpected free time to find a way to pass a long-overdue Farm Bill. They all once claimed it was a top priority. Now they don’t even mention it,
A new Farm Bill is more than TWO YEARS overdue, yet no Iowa House Republican lifted a finger during the “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” break to move it along.
Instead, they chose to protect Donald Trump from the contents of the Epstein files.
The Republican excuse machine, of course, will have two ready – and predictable – excuses.
- It was Speaker Johnson who refused to convene the House to protect Trump from release of the Epstein files, not Iowa’s House delegation.
- Just because Congress isn’t in session doesn’t mean its members aren’t working. Maybe they were home meeting with or helping constituents.
My replies:
- To the first excuse: No member of the Iowa delegation objected to the 54 day “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” break when it began, or while it was in progress. Nor did they do or say anything to convince Speaker Johnson to end it.Not one Iowan in the House even said anything to suggest that keeping the House as far away as possible from an actual voting session in order to protect Trump from new disclosures in the Epstein files was a bad idea.
Sounds like support for what Speaker Johnson was doing to me.
- Let’s examine the second excuse:Remember when you were a kid and when school reconvened after the summer break your teacher would ask the class to write a short composition titled: “What I Did Over My Summer Vacation?”
If Iowa’s “no show” House delegation had to write a similar composition about their “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” paid vacation, imagine what their composition highlights would be:
- Rep. Mariane Miller Meeks (R – 1st IA) kept a low profile after telling an audience of Johnson County Republicans in August that she’d hold a Town Meeting “when Hell freezes over.” An arctic blast apparently roared through Hell on November 10 when Miller-Meeks finally held a Town Hall meeting in Keosauqua. Her constituents roasted her. She has held no Town Meetings since, nor announced any future ones.
- Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA) campaigned hard for the U.S. Senate and continued raising money for that race during the break. She held at least one big money fundraiser in Washington, DC in October, reportedly attended mostly by lobbyists with big checks..
- Rep. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) – still hasn’t held any Town Meetings. He spent most of his 54 day taxpayer paid vacation trying to pin the blame for the government shut down on Democrats. His party controls the House and Senate and the White House, but he desparately wants Democrats to take the blame for the inability of majority Republicans to fund the government, the very foundation of governing.
- Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) – decided to run for Governor and spent much of his paid “Epstein” vacation doing just that.
Please note: After not showing up for work for 54 days, two of these four – Feenstra and Hinson – think they deserve a promotion and deserted their posts to campaign for one.
Also: two of the four – Nunn and Feenstra – are members of the House Agriculture Committee. Neither did or said anything during this hiatus to advance the prospects of passing a new Farm Bill which is already two years late.
Clearly, none of Iowa’s “no show” House delegation deserves or earned $29,000 in pay for the 54 day “Keep the Epstein Files Hidden” break.
They should not accept any of it, and they should give back any portion of it they have already received.
There is precedent for returning congressional pay if it is unwarranted, by the way.
Back during the President Gerald Ford administration, then Congressman Tom Harkin (D – 5th IA) voted against a pay raise for Congress that would take effect without an election intervening. Harkin thought the voters, not the politicians in Congress who would benefit from the new higher pay rate, should have the final say on pay raises.
When it passed anyway, Harkin rejected it and personally delivered a check for the amount of the pay hike to Treasury Secretary William Simon at his office in the Treasury Department next door to the White House.
It can be done, if – like Harkin did -they have the will and character to do it.
I have grown weary over the years listening to Republicans give speeches about people who won’t work but want taxpayers to support them. Those speeches are usually filled with deliberate lies and misrepresentation, but that doesn’t stop them,
My question is this: if Iowans in the US House who deliberately did not do their jobs for 54 days accept or keep even a nickel of their pay from that period, haven’t they become the real people they rail against in all those speeches?
They should give the money back.
More of author Barry Piatt’s writing can be found on Substack at Barry Piatt on Politics — Behind the Curtain.