While last night's last-minute "fiscal cliff" deal spared federal employees from the most drastic impacts of sequestration for at least two months, the House of Representatives still managed to take a shot at government workers by passing a separate measure that would extend the current pay freeze for a third year.

But with just one day to go before the end of the 112th Congress, those who follow federal employee issues both on and off Capitol Hill don't expect the Senate to take up the House measure -- which would force the GOP sponsors of the continued pay freeze to restart their effort in the 113th Congress.

On Thursday, President Obama signed an executive order that rescinded the current federal pay freeze effective March 27. The order, which would give lawmakers and federal employees a 0.5 percent pay raise for the last six months of the fiscal year, outraged several members of Congress in both chambers.

The fiscal cliff deal that was worked out in the Senate and passed the House blocked the pay raise for members of Congress, but House Republicans, led by Reps. Michael Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (Calif.), introduced a separate measure aimed at also blocking the pay raise for the rest of the federal workforce.

The bill, H.R. 6726, was approved last night 287-129, with 55 Democrats voting to support it.

"Last week, with the prospect of the fiscal cliff looming large and Congress working through the last minute to avert financial and economic disaster, President Obama felt it was appropriate to grant pay raises across the federal government. I could not allow this to go unchallenged," Fitzpatrick said in a statement after the bill was passed. "At a time when American families are tightening their belts and businesses are reducing salaries to make ends meet, I believe that the federal government must lead by example."

Fitzpatrick said he would continue to fight for pay increases for military service members but encouraged the Senate to join him in fighting any raise for "the federal bureaucracy."

But the Senate hasn't scheduled a vote on the House legislation today, and federal employee union officials and Democrats on Capitol Hill who follow government workforce issues said this morning that they don't expect Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to take up the legislation before a new Congress is seated tomorrow.

Last night Rep. Gerry Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia district is home to a large number of federal workers, said that although he strongly supports freezing the salaries of members of Congress, he could not support freezing federal employee salaries for a third year in a row.

"If members of Congress and the public simply take a look at the scoreboard, they'll see that with respect to the deficit reduction, federal workers have not only borne a disproportionate share of the cost, they've virtually borne the only share of the cost," Connolly said.

Connolly noted that federal employees, through the 2011 and 2012 pay freezes and benefit cuts, have already sacrificed an estimated $103 billion over 10 years in the name of deficit reduction.

Cory Bythrow, a spokesman for the National Federation of Federal Employees, said today that although the pay freeze bill appears to be dead in the 112th Congress, it's sure to rise again in the next Congress.

"When they will take it up we don't know," he said. "But we've seen no less than two dozen bills targeting federal employees in this Congress, and we fully expect 2013 to look a lot like 2012 in terms of the House targeting federal employees."

Bythrow added that stopping the drastic funding reductions that could still hit agencies through the sequester remains the top concern of federal employee unions.

"Sequestration is the federal workforce issue of a generation," he said. "It has the potential to disrupt people everywhere in government. We could see serious furloughs. ... That said, federal pay is our next most important issue after that."