House Unanimously Votes to Repeal Senators’ Ability to Sue the Government Over Data Collection

The House of Representatives voted unanimously on Wednesday to repeal senators’ ability to sue the federal government for accessing their digital data, a measure that would effectively kill a legislative carveout the upper chamber stuck into the funding bill that ended the government shutdown.

The current repeal proposal strips the measure out of the current funding bill. Only three Republicans and four Democrats did not vote.

It now heads to the Senate, where there’s growing opposition to the carveout that senators originally included.

This repeal effort comes just a week after enraged House Republican leaders vowed to eliminate the last-minute provision.

“It was airdropped at the last minute in the bill to fund government, and it was not something we were aware of. And it was not something that we supported,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told NOTUS moments after the vote.

It is retroactive through 2022, giving senators the ability to sue the federal government for $500,000 for each “instance” of the federal government seizing or attempting to seize their data, such as phone records, without notifying them.

The measure was added to the funding bill after Republican senators raised concerns over former special counsel for the Department of Justice, Jack Smith, subpoenaing senators’ phone records in 2023 as part of an investigation related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The outcry occurred after Sen. Chuck Grassley released a report that included an FBI document named several targets of Smith’s subpoenas. Only senators, not members of the House, are able to use the carveout.

Many GOP senators said they were blindsided by the provision and were furious at Senate leadership for effectively forcing them to vote on a measure that they saw as a self-serving and an inadequate addition to a funding bill.

“It’s actually absurd that they put that in there. It’s shockingly absurd,” Rep. Chip Roy told reporters last week.

The provision disproportionately benefits a group of senators whom Grassley’s report said were included in Smith’s probe: Sens. Josh Hawley, Bill Hagerty, Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Cynthia Lummis, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville and Ron Johnson.

Of that group, only Graham has said he is planning to sue the government. The rest have tried to distance themselves from the provision.

Despite vocal opposition from some corners of the Republican conference, repealing the provision remains a challenge. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday that the intent of the provision is to create “accountability” for what many senators see as executive overreach. He said he understood where the lawmakers’ complaints come from but has not yet committed to introducing the bill for a floor vote.

“There were a lot of folks who were aware, but yes, some weren’t. And it was in the text that was shipped out,” Thune said. “I take that as a legitimate criticism in terms of the process. But I think, on the substance, I believe that you need to have some sort of accountability.”

“We were thinking about the institution, the Senate and individual senators, going in the future,” Thune added, saying he is having conversations with members of his conference to find better language.