Did Mitch McConnell vote against sick leave 4 times? We checked his record

Amid U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s lengthy health-related absence from Congress in summer 2026, people shared a claim that in 1993, 2015, 2020 and 2022 he voted against or blocked measures mandating employees receive sick leave.

In a July 2026 statement, the long-serving Kentucky Republican said his hospitalization stemmed from a fall on June 14. An early-August statement announced his discharge from a rehabilitation center to continue recovery at home.

In one of two primary examples of the rumor, on Aug. 9, an X user wrote (archived) that the former Senate majority leader “repeatedly voted against federal paid sick leave legislation,” specifically citing the years 1993, 2015, 2020 and 2022. The user then alluded to a debunked rumor claiming McConnell had died, saying, “He has currently been on paid sick leave for over 7 weeks (if he is even still alive).” Other people posted similar messages.

(@JesterJum accessed via X)

A popular post (archived) on Threads described McConnell as “The same guy who voted NO on paid family leave (1993), blocked paid sick leave during COVID (2020), and voted against 7 days of paid sick leave for rail workers (2022).”

(@mahoney5929 accessed via Threads)

In sum, research showed this rumor about McConnell’s voting record was mostly true, albeit in need of a few clarifications on the specifics. In the four years mentioned, he did vote against measures focused on providing legislation for paid and unpaid sick leave.

• In 1993, McConnell voted against the Family and Medical Leave Act. The bill provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave, not paid leave as users claimed. 
• In 2015, he voted against a paid sick leave amendment attached to a budget resolution for fiscal year 2016. 
• On March 18, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he voted in favor of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which included emergency paid sick leave, although earlier the same day, he voted against an amendment aimed at strengthening that legislation and extending its benefits an extra year (through the end of 2021). Later, in December 2020, he reportedly blocked Congress from extending the paid leave mandate, resulting in its expiration on Dec. 31. 
• In 2022, McConnell voted in favor of a bill to prevent a rail worker strike. Earlier the same day, he voted against a resolution providing those same rail workers seven days of annual paid sick leave.

Snopes emailed a McConnell representative to request comment on his sick leave votes and will update this article if we receive further information.

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

On Feb. 5, 1993, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed the Family and Medical Leave Act into law. The signing, which took place in the White House Rose Garden two weeks after his inauguration, was the new administration’s first major social legislation achievement.

The bill provides parents who work for companies with 50 or more employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave — not paid leave, as users claimed — to care for a new child or sick relative.

In a roll call vote in the Senate, McConnell voted against the FMLA. A C-SPAN video shows McConnell’s vote (beginning at 10:22:25).

In searches of C-SPAN for congressional video archives and of Newspapers.com for newspaper articles from the time period, we found no record of McConnell explaining his nay vote. McConnell’s written statement marking the beginning of the 103rd Congress didn’t mention the bill, either.

Paid sick leave amendment, March 2015

On March 26, 2015, senators passed, by a vote of 61-39, an amendment submitted by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in an effort to provide more Americans with paid sick time. The amendment’s passage did not enact law but instead established funding for a paid sick leave provision in the Senate’s budget resolution for fiscal year 2016.

In a roll call vote, McConnell voted nay on the amendment.

At the time, the Washington state-based Peninsula Daily News reported on the amendment:

SEVEN DAYS’ PAID SICK LEAVE: Voting 61 for and 39 against, the Senate on Thursday amended the Republican budget (S Con Res 11, above) so that it would not impede any new law entitling workers to seven days’ paid sick leave per year.

At present, the Family and Medical Leave Act allows qualified workers 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave per year.

A yes vote was to adopt an amendment in behalf of paid sick leave.

A C-SPAN video shows Murray introducing the amendment (beginning at 4:18:10), saying in part, “Working families should not have to sacrifice a day’s pay or sacrifice their job altogether just to take care of themselves or a sick child.”

As the only Republican speaking on the floor prior to the vote, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., urged others to oppose the amendment, citing the FMLA’s 12 weeks of unpaid leave as sufficient.

McConnell’s actions during pandemic, 2020

According to social media posts, McConnell either blocked or voted no on paid leave measures pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

At the onset of the pandemic in the U.S., on March 18, 2020, the Senate passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The legislation served as an emergency response to the quickly escalating situation.

Among several offerings, the act provided employees affected by COVID-19 with up to two weeks of paid sick time, as well as 12 weeks of leave — the latter 10 weeks paid with the requirement that employers pony up at least two-thirds of the worker’s normal rate. The bill also amended FMLA to provide leave, as well as some pay, to employees who worked for an employer at least 30 days — as opposed to the standard FMLA law requiring at least 12 months, or 1,250 hours, of employment.

McConnell voted in favor of the temporary legislation, with 90 members voting yea, eight voting no and two not voting. The bill mandated its benefits expire on Dec. 31, 2020.

Earlier the same day, in another roll call vote, McConnell and 50 other senators voted against a paid sick leave amendment that proposed allegedly favorable mandates for employers and employees through 2021 (Murray also introduced that amendment).

The amendment, with the short title of “Providing Americans Insured Days of Leave Act of 2020,” sought to expand the “Families First” act to offer private sector workers affected by COVID-19 with 14 days of paid sick leave. Employers were to receive immediate government reimbursements conditional upon providing documentation to the Labor Department. The amendment also sought to expand FMLA to offer at least 10 out of 12 weeks of paid leave — as opposed to FMLA’s standard of unpaid leave — for private sector workers during emergencies, as well as to propose a standard of seven days of accrued paid sick leave.

In remarks on the Senate floor on March 18, Murray said, “But for those who may not be ready just yet to agree we need paid sick days and paid leave going forward permanently, the amended version of this bill that we are introducing today and asking for a vote on shortly would only provide this support through December 2021.” A C-SPAN video features Murray’s full remarks (beginning at 3:43:45).

Some social media posts said McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, also blocked COVID-19 relief. In December 2020, BuzzFeed News reported he “was pushing to block the paid leave mandate from being extended,” as well as that “the extension was left out of the aid bill as a concession to McConnell.” Ultimately, the Senate did not extend the paid leave mandate beyond Dec. 31, 2020.

Rail workers sick leave measure, 2022

On Dec. 1, 2022, the Senate passed a measure to prevent an impending U.S. rail workers strike. Reuters reported such a strike “would have devastated the American economy.”

A separate House-passed measure the same day sought to provide seven days of paid sick leave for railroad employees.

That effort failed in the Senate, with McConnell and 42 others voting against the resolution, which required 60 votes to pass.

A C-SPAN video features McConnell speaking without mentioning the paid sick leave resolution.

Speaking in favor of the measure prior to the vote, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., condemned “corporate greed” and billions in profits for the rail industry, saying in part, “Workers who do difficult and dangerous work have zero paid sick days. Zero. You get sick, you’ve got a mark against you. A couple of marks, you get fired. This cannot and must not happen in America in 2022.”

At the time, PolitiFact fact-checked Sanders’ remarks as mostly true, noting, “The vast majority of workers at the largest railroads have none, but a small percentage do.”

In 2024, a Transportation Department letter reported that “90 percent of Class I freight employees have paid sick days, up from approximately 5 percent at the end of 2022.”

For further reading, we previously reported as false the rumor that officials transported McConnell’s dead body to a Kentucky coroner on Aug. 3.

Sources