Which U.S. senators publicly said they would forgo pay during the 2018 government shutdown?

1. What the original claim asserts and why it matters—sorting demand from evidence

The user’s question seeks a straightforward roster: which senators publicly committed to forgoing pay during the 2018 shutdown. This is a factual, time-bound query that can be resolved by contemporaneous reporting or official Senate payroll actions. The sample analyses provided do not present a single authoritative list; they conflate separate shutdowns (2018 and 2025) and relay partial or tentative assertions. Accurate attribution matters because “forgoing pay” can mean different things: public pledge, formal payroll withholding request, or donation of salary, and each has different procedural consequences. The supplied materials show ambiguity about which senators made public pledges in 2018 versus later shutdowns, so answering the question requires care to avoid mislabeling 2025 pledges as 2018 actions ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

2. The evidence present in the provided documents—what is actually supported

Among the supplied analyses, the only explicit reference tied to 2018 is a claim that “at least 20 lawmakers, including Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, asked to have their pay withheld during the 2018 government shutdown”; however, that statement appears in a secondary-analysis note and is not accompanied by a detailed roster or primary-source citation in the provided excerpts ^[4]. Other documents explicitly state they do not address 2018 pay forfeitures and instead discuss the 2025 shutdown or general proposals to suspend pay during shutdowns. Therefore, the only supported 2018-specific fact in the provided set is the Kennedy/“at least 20 lawmakers” reference, and it lacks granular attribution ^{[4] [1] [3]}.

3. Conflicting or unverified assertions among the supplied analyses—what to watch for

One supplied analysis suggests senators such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Gardner publicly forgone pay in 2018, but that same entry was flagged as “unable to verify” and framed as drawn from historical records without direct corroboration in the included documents. Other pieces focus on 2025 pledges and list lawmakers giving up pay in that later shutdown, which can create the impression of continuity when the situations differ procedurally and politically. The mixed coverage reveals two common pitfalls: temporal conflation (2018 vs. 2025) and reliance on secondary summaries rather than primary contemporaneous reporting, so any definitive answer must separate verified 2018 statements from later actions or general proposals ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

4. Who is named in the available materials as linked to forgoing pay—and how solid is that naming

The only senator explicitly named in the provided set with a link to a 2018 withholding request is Sen. John Kennedy; the material claims he was among “at least 20 lawmakers” to ask that pay be withheld, but it provides no exhaustive list or primary documentation in these excerpts. Other named figures in the provided corpus relate to 2025 actions or to proposals like "No Budget, No Pay" rather than documented 2018 withdrawals. Thus, from the provided evidence, only Kennedy’s association has direct mention, and even that is not fully sourced within the supplied analysis excerpts, leaving substantial uncertainty about other senators who might have publicly pledged to forgo pay in 2018 ^{[4] [6] [1]}.

5. What a rigorous answer would require—and recommended next steps for verification

To conclusively list which senators publicly said they would forgo pay during the 2018 shutdown requires consulting contemporaneous primary sources: January 2018 news stories from major outlets, Senate public statements, press releases, congressional payroll records, and AP/Reuters coverage. The supplied materials point to a plausible kernel—Sen. John Kennedy and “at least 20 lawmakers”—but they do not provide the primary documentation needed for a definitive roster. Verification should target January 2018 archives from AP, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and official Senate press statements to produce an authoritative, sourced list ^{[4] [2] [3]}.

6. Bottom line and transparent caveat for readers

Based solely on the provided analyses, the answer is: no comprehensive, corroborated list is included; Sen. John Kennedy is explicitly mentioned as having asked to withhold pay and a broader “20 lawmakers” figure is cited, but the remainder of the roster is unverified in these sources. The supplied documents also repeatedly conflate or emphasize 2025 shutdown behaviors, which could mislead readers if used to infer 2018 actions. For a final, authoritative list, contemporaneous primary reporting and congressional records from January 2018 must be consulted.