For 24 million Americans, the bipartisan funding bill signed into law on Wednesday will cause health care premiums to double, triple, or even quadruple, pilfering hundreds or thousands more dollars from their pockets each month as costs for other basic necessities also rise.
But for a handful of Republican senators, the funding bill could be a major windfall — as it includes a provision granting hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in relation to their potential role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The legislation passed by Congress this week allows senators to sue for at least $500,000 for each instance in which federal investigators searched their phone records without their knowledge in relation to Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s probe into President Donald Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. This provision would apply retroactively, stretching back to 2022, and would require senators to be notified of the searches.
The provision was reportedly inserted in negotiations between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-New York) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), The Washington Post reports.
Per Roll Call, this means that at least 10 Republican senators could see payouts under the bill, with at least eight eligible for a payment of at least $1 million, if not several million dollars: Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), Ted Cruz (Texas), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee) Josh Hawley (Missouri), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Rick Scott (Florida), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), and Tommy Tuberville (Alabama).
Blackburn, who is currently running for governor, has already said that she plans to sue for the payout. Graham has said he will “definitely” sue for the money. “And if you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars? No,” Graham told reporters. “I want to make it so painful no one ever does this again.”
One Republican, Hagerty, has said he will not pursue a payment. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has said that House Republicans are planning to introduce legislation to repeal the provision next week, though it’s unclear if it will get the votes to pass in both chambers.
The provision reportedly came as a surprise to lawmakers in the House. But the bill still passed the House largely on party lines on Wednesday night, with the help of six of the caucus’s most conservative Democrats.
Democrats have heavily criticized the provision. In a speech on the House floor, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) blasted the bill for “stealing from the American people” by slashing Affordable Care Act tax credits to fund massive payouts for Republican senators.
“It is unconscionable that what we are debating right now is legislation that will give 8 members of the United State Senate over $1 million apiece. And we are robbing people of their food assistance and of their healthcare to pay for it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“How is this even on the floor? How can we as members of Congress vote to enrich ourselves by stealing from the American people?” she said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (Maryland), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, pointed out that the phone records in question were turned over to investigators in response to a lawful subpoena — and that records are routinely turned over in federal and state investigations across the country.
“The Senators may not like being treated like the rest of America, but these phone-record subpoenas and non-disclosure orders are routine in grand jury investigations at the state and federal level,” Raskin said. “If we believe that citizens should receive notice when the government subpoenas their phone bill, great! Perhaps this revolutionary new policy — which civil liberties groups would probably support — should be the law.”
“But then the law should protect the civil liberties of all 320 million Americans, as the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution demands, not just the 100 Americans in the Senate who seem to have forgotten that they are nothing but the servants of the American people and not a royal class of oligarchs who float above the law that applies to everyone else,” he went on.
Caricature of Lindsey Graham is the work of talented artist, DonkeyHotey. You can view all of his work on Flickr.
