This is an extended version of a story originally published on January 24.
January was a quiet time at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Since the shutdown of the country’s government began on December 22, the SEC, like other government agencies, had been operating on a skeleton staff. Of its roughly 4,400 employees, probably not more than about 300 – most of whom are in critical law enforcement or protection roles – were working.
Contrary to what you might imagine, implementing a shutdown is a remarkably quick process at the SEC. Internal guidance is that it should take no more than four hours to close down most of its systems. The next business day after a government shutdown becomes effective, SEC staff have to attend their workplaces to start powering down. They are allowed to set up out-of-office voicemails and emails, but can’t do a whole lot more.
They cannot work for free even if they want to. As the SEC reminded its staff in a memo, doing so would violate the Antideficiency Act, which restricts what government agencies are allowed to do in the event of there being no appropriations to fund them – the technical definition of a shutdown.
