Pressure being placed on Congress to end the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) laws continues to grow, resulting in a growing number of House and Senate cosponsors.
The specific bills in question, H.R.82 and S.597, would fully repeal both the WEP and GPO laws. As of late March, H.R.82 has 311 cosponsors out of the 435 members of the House. While S.597 lists 53 cosponsors in the 100 member US Senate, the true number is 52. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a staunch opponent of WEP/ GPO, passed away last September. California’s interim US Senator, Laphonza Butler, also cosponsored S.597. In March, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer signed on as a cosponsor for the first time.
When it comes to S.597, what is most significant is the fact that for the first time in memory a bill changing WEP/GPO has crossed the simple majority threshold in the Senate. In fact, we are unaware of any time when a bill gained more than 48 cosponsors in the Senate. It should also be noted that for any bill impacting Social Security to pass the US Senate a minimum of 60 votes is required.
In the House, where a simple majority of 218 votes is required for a bill to pass, achieving a supermajority of support to repeal WEP/GPO is somewhat routine. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were several Congressional sessions where cosponsors in the House exceeded 320 members.
“Cosponsoring a bill and voting for that bill to become law can be two different things. While many sponsors do intend to vote for a bill, others sign on because they believe the proposal has merit and should be fully vetted – vetting which often involves cost analysis and funding methods,” explains Mass Retirees CEO Shawn Duhamel.
“At the end of the day, full repeal remains a very tough sell – especially in the Senate. It does help having Senator Schumer now onboard, but key Republican leaders remain opposed. For instance, despite Texas having over 215,000 retirees impacted by the WEP (2nd highest in the US next to CA), neither of the state’s US Senators support full repeal.
“That being said, we do anticipate the House Ways and Means Committee holding a second hearing on potential solutions to WEP/GPO prior to the summer break. Such a hearing will be the next step following the informational hearing that took place in Louisiana last November. We firmly believed that change will come, it is simply a matter of when and in what form it will take.”
Members should monitor Mass Retirees weekly news updates for all breaking news on WEP/GPO as it happens.