A Rare Unanimous Vote in House Kills Big Senator Payouts

The House of Representatives cast a unanimous 426-0 vote on Wednesday to remove a Senate-added provision that could have allowed certain senators to claim at least $500,000 each in taxpayer-funded damages. The provision, which drew bipartisan criticism, was inserted into the legislation that ended the recent government shutdown and would have given the green light to senators—but not members of the House—to file a complaint against the federal government if investigators got hold of their records without their knowledge, per the Wall Street Journal.

The provision is retroactive to 2022 and covers the Justice Department's collection of phone records from eight GOP senators during special counsel Jack Smith's probe into President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Under the provision, senators could be eligible to receive payouts of $500,000 or more. House members from both parties criticized the provision as improper, with Texas Rep. Chip Roy describing it as "self-serving and self-dealing" and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York calling it a "multimillion-dollar slush fund."

Despite their opposition, House Republicans voted to pass the spending package to reopen the government, as making changes would have prolonged the shutdown. The measure eliminating the provision now heads to the Senate; it's unclear how the vote from that body will go. Per the New York Post, Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended the provision on Tuesday, before the House vote. "The House is going to do what they're going to do with it. It didn't apply to them," he told CNN.

"I don't think anybody was talking about taking the money, but I think the penalty is in place to ensure that in the future ... there is a remedy in place," Thune added. GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the senators who could've benefited from the provision, said he actually had planned to sue for "tens of millions of dollars," per the Journal. But Sen. Josh Hawley, another senator whose records were seized, criticized the provision and said he had no plans to seek damages. "I was shocked it was in there, and I think it's a bad idea," he said on Wednesday.