Federal News Network: Bill to repeal WEP, GPO reaches threshold to force a House floor vote

FEDERAL NEWS NETWORK, DREW FRIEDMAN

Legislation to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset is nearing the finish line in the House.

Just over a week after it was filed, a discharge petition for the Social Security Fairness Act has reached the 218-signature threshold needed to force the bill to a floor vote.

Thirteen House lawmakers added their signatures to the petition on Thursday, after Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Garret Graves (R-Pa.) gathered advocates outside the Capitol building to urge their colleagues to push their legislation forward.

“We are closer than we have ever been,” Spanberger said during the press conference Thursday morning. “These Americans shouldn’t have their retirement benefits slashed, and in some cases eliminated completely, just because they chose to dedicate their careers to serving our communities. These Americans have been waiting for decades for a solution, and that’s why we have worked for years to urge House leadership to take real action on an issue of basic fairness.”

If enacted, the Social Security Fairness Act would eliminate both WEP and GPO, two decades-old provisions of Social Security that reduce and sometimes fully eliminate benefits for federal retirees in the Civil Service Retirement System, as well as other public servants and retirees who have worked in state and local government. Combined, WEP and GPO impact the benefits of nearly 3 million public servants, as well as their spouses, widows and widowers, who worked in a public sector job, but who also spent time employed in the private sector and paying into Social Security.

Even though the petition’s signature threshold has been met, there will still be a seven-day waiting period before the vote can proceed, according to House rules. A member, likely Graves or Spanberger, would then have to call for a vote on the legislation, which would give Speaker Mike Johnson two days to initiate the vote.

But along with the required seven-day wait, the still unresolved agency spending levels for fiscal 2025 and a possible government shutdown on the horizon mean the legislation is unlikely to see movement until November at the earliest.

And even if the House passes the Social Security Fairness Act, the legislation faces yet another battle on the Senate side. The Senate’s companion bill has 62 bipartisan cosponsors, but has not yet seen much movement in the direction of a floor vote.

John Hatton, staff vice president of policy and programs for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), said while a House vote on the Social Security Fairness Act might not be likely until after the presidential election, NARFE and other advocates are planning to turn their attention and efforts to the Senate bill in the meantime.

“Floor time will be at a premium in the lame duck session,” Hatton told Federal News Network. “We’ll need to press senators to prioritize consideration prior to the end of the year, before the clock runs out.”

In the decades of advocacy for passing a repeal of WEP and GPO, the legislation has continually gained traction. With currently 327 cosponsors, the House’s Social Security Fairness Act is one of the most highly supported bills in all of Congress.

Along with supporting the affected public servants, removing WEP and GPO could also help the workforce within the Social Security Administration itself, which has been struggling for years, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.

“We should eliminate the WEP and GPO because it’s the right thing to do for our people directly harmed,” Otis Johnson, national vice president of AFGE District 14, said during Thursday’s press conference. “But it will also lift a heavy burden of the workers at the Social Security Administration, allowing the agency to better serve the public.”

After reaching significant bipartisan, bicameral backing for the legislation, getting the bill officially enacted will be “a test for our democracy,” NARFE’s Hatton said during the press conference.

“Are members of Congress willing to not just take credit for supporting this bill, but do what it takes to pass it into law?” Hatton said. “With a bill with such overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, will it get the votes that it deserves?”