House Democrats led by Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen of Maryland believed on Tuesday night they’d found a way to tiptoe out of a political corner Republicans are hoping to paint them into.

Under the language of the GOP bill scheduled for action under Wednesday’s suspension calendar, a pay freeze that has been in place for federal workers since 2010 would continue beyond this December to the end of 2013, while the bill would also prevent members of Congress from getting a pay increase.

But House Democrats say the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., and backed by GOP leaders, is intended to embarrass lawmakers who want to vote against lengthening the current pay freeze for nonmilitary federal workers.

Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., on Tuesday sarcastically acknowledged the GOP maneuver was “clever,” because it essentially would require members who don’t want to see the pay of federal employees frozen longer to vote against extending the pay freeze for themselves.

“It includes a freeze of our own salary. Very clever. So it will be perceived [that] if you are voting against the bill, you are voting to raise your own salary,” Hoyer said. Both Hoyer and Van Hollen represent Washington-area districts that are homes to thousands of federal employees.

Democrats announced a solution on Tuesday night: Van Hollen said he is introducing a separate, alternative bill “designed to allow members to support a congressional pay freeze, without further penalizing federal employees.”

In a letter to fellow House Democrats, Van Hollen further explained: “Federal employees have seen no cost-of-living adjustment for two years. For the [fiscal] 2013 budget, President Obama has proposed a very modest 0.5 percent [COLA]—which falls well short of a full COLA of 1.7 percent.... House Republicans want to block even this small adjustment.”

“The Republicans are once again trying to make federal employees scapegoats for the slow economy resulting from Bush economic policies,” Van Hollen wrote. “Please join me in opposing the bill to penalize federal employees and in cosponsoring legislation to freeze Congressional pay in [fiscal] 2013.”

In an interview, Van Hollen said he would be asking Republicans who control the House floor schedule to add his bill to Wednesday’s suspension calendar so it is considered, side-by-side, with the Republican bill, and members’ positions can be made clear.

Democrats said they had not yet received word from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on whether Van Hollen’s bill would be given expedited consideration Wednesday on the House floor, to go along with the Republican bill.

Cantor’s office did not respond to that question from National Journal Daily by presstime on Tuesday night.

Earlier, Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon had said of the GOP bill: “Federal employees earn higher salaries than their counterparts in the private sector, and with record deficits, we must cut spending and not use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to give government bureaucrats and members of Congress a raise.”

Republicans have been seizing on a Congressional Budget Office report released on Monday showing the federal government paid 16 percent more in total compensation than the private sector and paid 2 percent more in total wages between 2005 and 2010 than it would have if average wages had been comparable with those in the private sector.

But there are wide differences among federal workers with varied education levels. For instance, federal workers with a professional degree or doctorate earned about 23 percent less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts.

Because the Republican majority has placed Duffy’s legislation on Wednesday’s suspension calendar, there will be no amendments to the bill allowed, and two-thirds of those members present for the vote must agree for it to pass.

And although Republicans hold 242 of the 433 currently occupied seats in the House, they do not control two-thirds of them. That means some Democratic support will be needed—that is, if all the members show up to vote.

But to hear Hoyer describe it, what’s at issue for the GOP is not so much whether the bill passes.

Rather, he suggests congressional Republicans and the National Republican Congressional Committee are ready to rev up attacks ads against Democrats who vote against the measure, as a vote they have cast against blocking pay increases the pay for themselves. Democrats hope the Van Hollen bill—even if it doesn’t pass—might help defang those attacks.