GovExec: Lawmakers’ successfully force a vote on eliminating the windfall elimination provision

GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE, ERICH WAGNER

The bipartisan effort to advance House legislation that would repeal a pair of controversial tax rules that negatively impact some federal workers’ retirement income took another step forward last week as the bill’s sponsors compiled the 218 signatures needed to force a House vote on the measure.

It took Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Garret Graves, R-La., less than two weeks to compile the requisite signatures to require House Speaker Mike Johnson to schedule a vote on the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), a measure aimed at eliminating Social Security’s windfall elimination provision and government pension offset. Prior to launching the discharge petition drive, the bill already had more than 300 cosponsors.

The windfall elimination provision reduces the Social Security benefits of retired employees who spent a portion of their careers in the private sector in addition to a federal, state or local government position where Social Security is not intended as an element of their retirement income, such as the Civil Service Retirement System. And the government pension offset reduces spousal and survivor Social Security benefits in families with retired government workers.

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The windfall elimination provision reduces the Social Security benefits of around 2 million former civil servants, while the GPO affects nearly 800,000 retirees.

There is now a seven-day “layover period” following the petition’s success, which ends Thursday, after which one of the sponsors may call for a vote on the bill on the second or fourth Monday of the month. But with Congress in recess for all of October in anticipation of the 2024 election, the earliest that it could be called up is in November.

“From Virginia to Louisiana to everywhere else in America, millions of retired public servants have waited more than 40 years for their elected officials to tackle this fundamental issue of fairness,” Spanberger and Graves said in a joint statement last week. “These retirees deserve the benefits they earned through their hard work—and they deserve to see the WEP and GPO eliminated. Over the past week, we’ve demonstrated that both Democrats and Republicans—from across the political spectrum—understand that the time is now to remove these penalties.”

Even if the House successfully votes to pass the measure, the bill’s sponsors will find an uphill climb in the Senate. Though companion legislation in that chamber has 63 cosponsors—enough to break the filibuster—there are just two months between Election Day and the end of the congressional session, and lawmakers anticipate much of that time to be tied up with negotiations to fund the government.

Federal employee groups, for their part, lauded the lawmakers’ efforts and urged senators to quickly take up the measure if it advances.

“WEP and GPO penalize hardworking Americans for serving their communities, states and country, simply because they earned a pension through that service,” said Bill Shackelford, national president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association. “With 218 signatures on the discharge petition to bring H.R. 82, the Social Security Fairness Act, to the House floor, public servants will finally get the vote they deserve.”

“NTEU appreciates all of the hard works Reps. Graves and Spanberger have done leading on H.R. 82 and we want to thank every member of Congress who signed onto the discharge petition, said National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald. “We look forward to seeing the full House finally vote to repeal the windfall elimination provision and government pension offset.”