UVU Review’s Tess Thomas spoke with Representative Mike Kennedy about the government shutdown. Kennedy is a Republican from Utah and has been serving in the House of Representatives since Jan 2025.
TESS THOMAS: How does the government shutdown really affect a normal, non-government-employed person?
MIKE KENNEDY: Air traffic controllers, for example, are paid by the federal government, and in this case, there are slowdowns, canceled flights, as well as potentially increased danger associated with these flights. Because right now, for the past five weeks, air traffic controllers have been going without pay, and [so are] military individuals’ families who live paycheck to paycheck. The military is all funded by the government, the federal government and the state government, but in this case, the federal government is not making its payments to its military or border security.
THOMAS: Why should a college student care about the government shutdown?
KENNEDY: Individuals are not receiving a paycheck, and most students are going to understand what it’s like when they’re living paycheck to paycheck, or student loan disbursement to student loan disbursement, that when one of those paychecks doesn’t come through, many people can’t make rent, they can’t buy the food that they need to buy, and we’re talking this weekend SNAP benefits, and which is food stamps. For women and finishing children, funding may dry up so the Democrats are holding government hostages, hurting real people right now. And I find that entirely inappropriate.
THOMAS: What is the main issue the Democrats and Republicans don’t want to budge on?
KENNEDY: Republicans have already voted to fund the government. In fact, Senate and House Republicans have voted over and over again. As of yesterday [Oct. 28], the Senate Republicans have voted 13 times to fully fund the government. The House Republicans on Sept. 19 voted to fully fund the government, and part of the interesting questions that people have is, did they know anything about these demands that Chuck Schumer has on the Republicans until after the shutdown? The answer is no, because he’s using that as a ploy to justify his reason to shut the government down. But in fact, that whole debate I was planning on having over the past several weeks that we’ve been out, but because we’ve been out, we can’t have the debates that Chuck Schumer demands that we should have, and he’s holding the American people hostage as a result, and their government hostage as a result. He has one and a one-and-a-half trillion-dollar demand.
THOMAS: Is there something that can be done to make the federal government more efficient and not shut down again in the future?
KENNEDY: Yes, in fact, there are two proposals out there right now. One is no work, no pay. I’m proposing a bill that if Congress isn’t going to fund the government, and there’s a shutdown, then Congressmen can’t get their money. They won’t be paid until the shutdown is resolved. As I’ve already mentioned, Congressmen still can receive their pay. And if you want to research that, have a look at the 27th Amendment of the Constitution, which actually demands that Congress gets its pay, and you can’t make any changes to that unless you’ve had an election in between. So, the 27th Amendment mandates that Congress gets paid.
THOMAS: In what ways has the shutdown personally affected your finances?
KENNEDY: Many of us, congressmen and women, we’ve decided not to [get paid]. We’ve voluntarily revoked our pay until after the shutdown ends. But the other one is the No Shutdowns Act, which is sponsored by Dusty Johnson in the House and Ron Johnson in the Senate, that if we can’t come to a budget agreement to fund the government, then automatically there’s a 14-day funding of the government provision. And if in those 14 days we can’t fund the government, another 14-day funding process happens, and that will continue automatically until the parties that are in the legislature agree to fund the government. So, there are a couple of bill proposals out there that would terminate this government shutdown nonsense. But for now, Democrats are using the shutdown to hold the American people in this government hostage to try to promote their radical agenda.
THOMAS: What is the best practical path to reopening the government, on a real level, aside from rhetoric and PR, what is the most likely path to get things going again?
KENNEDY: To have more American people contact Chuck Schumer. All we need is seven reasonable Democrats who are willing to vote with Republicans to fund the government, and it’s just a few people. So, the more people that call those Senate Democrats and tell them they insist on having the government open, the more the media is willing to tell the truth about this matter, that Chuck Schumer is driving this process to shut the government down. It’s not anything but that that’s shutting down the government. And to make sure that we pay attention to the federal government workers’ union, that just a few days ago published a letter. They represent 820,000 federal government workers and said that we should do just what these House Republicans did on Sept. 19, is that we should fund the government. So these unions now, who are not necessarily friendly to Republican causes, they’re actually supporting this funding of the government that we have been proposing since Sept. 19. So, people that are in states like Michigan, or people with Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, or other Senate Democrats, that are continuing to vote to not fund the government. We need people to message them that they need to vote to fund the government, and then this would end.
THOMAS: Is there anything that you would like to say to the students of UVU?
KENNEDY: Love UVU. It’s a great place, and I’m sorry for the terrible trauma that the institution’s had with Charlie Kirk’s assassination, but we love UVU and representing UVU and its students and want to make sure we’re there to help in whatever ways we can. (Editor’s note: Kennedy is referring to Charlie Kirk being shot on UVU’s campus on Sept. 10, 2025.)
