WASHINGTON — The House voted to overturn a controversial provision approved in the spending package to reopen the government last week, but Republican leaders in the Senate are slow-walking a commitment to fully repeal the measure.
Lawmakers voted unanimously in a rare bipartisan vote to reverse language passed in the government funding bill that would allow senators to sue the federal government for hundreds of thousands of dollars if their phone records are subpoenaed or obtained without prior consent or knowledge.
That language was negotiated in bipartisan talks in the Senate, but was added to the funding bill without House Republicans’ knowledge, many of them say — including Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., the top House lawmaker tasked with funding the government.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also told reporters he was blindsided by the provision and that he found it “way out of line.”
“I don’t think that was a smart thing to do,” he said last week. “I don’t think it was the right thing to do, and the House is going to reverse it.”
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has not committed to a vote on undoing the measure — and defended its inclusion when asked on Wednesday.
“This is something that needed to be addressed,” Thune said. “We’ll see what the House does, and then we’ll find out what our colleagues here in the Senate want to do.”
The provision would specifically allow senators to sue any federal department or agency for seizing phone records without prior notice — with each payment coming out to $500,000 per violation. The language came in direct response to revelations earlier this year that former special counsel Jack Smith had obtained phone records of eight senators without their knowledge as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
The language in the bill would also require cellphone service providers to alert Senate offices as well as the Senate sergeant at arms if a federal law enforcement official or agency requests the data of a specific senator. The provision only covers senators and does not include language for members of the House.
It would also allow senators to retroactively sue a federal agency if their data was “acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed” in the past — paving the way for those senators who were targeted in the Jan. 6 probe to file damages against Smith.
Sen. Graham ready to sue DOJ, cellphone provider
Only one of the eight senators has so far said he would use the statute to sue both the Justice Department and his cellphone service provider: Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Graham said he would sue for as many violations as he can find to “make it hurt as much as I possibly can so nobody will do this again.”
“I am not backing off. I am going to file a claim myself,” Graham said. “I am not going to take this crap anymore, I am going into court, and we’ll see what happens. The burden will be on me, but beyond me, I want people who experienced bad behavior to have an avenue to get redress.”
Graham also said he wanted to go further and eventually expand the law to cover more people — including House members, government employees, and “any private individual or any organization that believes they have a claim.”
