Authorizing the Speaker of the House of Representatives to initiate or intervene in civil actions on behalf of the House of Representatives regarding section 213 of title II of division C of the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 6019.

Last week's bill to fund the government included a provision, added quietly in the dead of night, that facilitates the transfer of millions of taxpayer dollars from the United States Treasury to the personal bank accounts of eight Republican Senators, and not just any Senators. They were Senators who may have had knowledge of or even participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, efforts that culminated in a violent attack on this very institution.

Since many of my Republican colleagues seem determined to forget the reality of that day, allow me to remind you that, during this attack, Capitol Police officers were maimed while protecting the lives of the very Senators now seeking to enrich themselves at the taxpayers' expense.

Officers lost eyes. They lost fingers. They suffered traumatic brain injuries and had their spinal disks smashed. One was stabbed with a metal fence stake. Another suffered a heart attack after being repeatedly tased. Some tragically lost their lives. Others were so severely injured that they could no longer continue to serve in law enforcement.

The plot to overturn the 2020 Presidential election led multiple grand juries, both State and Federal, to bring felony charges against its organizers and participants. These charges were based on actions like promoting fake elector slates, urging State officials to find votes to change the election outcome, and urging Vice President Pence to stand just a few feet from here behind that very dais and violate the United States Constitution.

According to public reports, one of the eight Republican Senators now eligible for this taxpayer-funded windfall testified before one of those grand juries. At the conclusion of the testimony, that Republican Senator reportedly embraced the prosecutor and lauded the work of the grand jurors as cathartic. That same Senator announced just yesterday that he intends to seek his payout of tens of millions of dollars from Federal taxpayers.

It should be clear to everyone here: Under no circumstances should the power entrusted to us as Members of Congress be used to line your own pockets, period, full stop. Anyone who voted for this appalling provision, including all but two House Republicans just last week, should feel ashamed of themselves.

As these Republican Senators and House Members know, phone records are among the most routine tools used in criminal investigations. They do not reveal the content of any conversations. They simply show which numbers were called, which numbers called them, and when those calls were made.

They are essentially phone bills. If these Republican Senators genuinely believe that their civil liberties were violated or if they are interested in changing the law relating to subpoenas, then they are better positioned than literally anyone on planet Earth to hold hearings, draft legislation, and debate proposed changes in the open. That is not what this is all about. This is about ensuring the law applies to every other American, just not to them.

Let me repeat that: This law applies only to them, not even Members of the House of Representatives, nor should it--not to every other American citizen; just them. This kind of self-serving, self-dealing, one-sided get-rich-quick scheme at the expense of taxpayers is why Americans are so disgusted with this Congress, and it is why I expect that many of those who supported this provision will be dismissed next November.

This lucrative carve-out masquerading as legislation isn't an isolated occurrence. It is part of a broader pattern: the weaponization of the Department of Justice and the United States Treasury to reward allies and to punish perceived enemies.

Let me briefly highlight just a few other examples.

Earlier this year, the Trump Department of Justice agreed to a $5 million settlement with an estate of a January 6 rioter who was killed while attempting to violently breach this Chamber just outside those doors. As the chief of police of the Capitol Police said at the time: ``This settlement sends a chilling message to law enforcement nationwide, especially to those with a protective mission like ours.''

According to public reporting, Department of Justice is also negotiating a settlement of up to $50 million to disgraced former General Michael Flynn over the purported wrongful prosecution, even though he confessed to the crimes for which, incredibly, he now says that he was wrongly prosecuted. You can't make this up.

Other reports indicate that President Trump is seeking $230 million from taxpayers for himself personally for prior investigations into his conduct. Let's not forget on day one of this administration when President Trump issued blanket pardons to over 1,000 criminals convicted of January 6 crimes, including members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who assaulted Capitol Police officers. Just last week, a militia member who participated in the riot was re-pardoned for a completely unrelated gun charge--pardoned twice.

What have we heard from congressional Republicans about all of this: about legalized payoffs to Republican Senators, about get-rich-quick schemes unfolding within the Federal Government, and about rewards for friends and retribution against opponents? We have heard absolutely nothing. The silence is deafening.

Last I checked, this is the United States Congress, not the Russian Duma. We do not create a protected class of elites who can siphon off public money, reward their friends, punish their political opponents, and insulate themselves from accountability. That is not what we are, or at least we weren't until last week, when nearly every single House Republican voted for this disgraceful provision of law after rejecting Democratic amendments to strip it from the bill.

My Republican colleagues had every opportunity to stop this provision from ever becoming law, but they voted for it anyway, and now they just want to turn around and say: Just kidding. We didn't mean it.

What are we doing here? Let's review the sequence of events.

Senate Republicans snuck this outrageous provision into a bill to reopen the Federal Government after months of Republicans insisting that they would only accept a clean funding bill. I can't tell you the number of times, with all due respect, that I heard Speaker Johnson say it over and over again. House Republicans went right along with this.

Now, straight-faced, worthy of an Academy Award, they want to pretend that the Senate may repeal the payoff they just made law? As we head into the fourth and, I pray, final year of this majority, I didn't think anything could shock me more. I was wrong.

The American people are sick and tired of this. They are sick and tired of watching politicians come to Washington to get rich while everyday Americans suffer through an affordability crisis that Republicans don't appear interested in confronting.

They are sick and tired of watching Republicans block a tax credit that will lower health insurance costs for millions of Americans after passing a partisan budget that will throw millions more off of Medicaid, only to turn around and create a slush fund for themselves.

I represent Rochester, New York, the city that Frederick Douglass chose to make his home and to publish The North Star. Douglass reminded us: ``The life of a nation is secure only when the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.''

Ask yourselves: Is sneaking this self-enriching provision into what was supposedly a clean funding bill honest, truthful, or virtuous? I think we all know the answer.

In fact, I am so opposed to this corrupt provision that I actually voted against it last week. I look forward to hearing my colleagues on the other side of the aisle try to explain why they did not.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I need to say, as someone who served on the House Rules Committee for 4 years, that we clearly could have put on the floor and made in order an amendment to strike this provision from the bill that had been passed by the Senate.

Most people who took social studies in elementary school understand the bill has to pass the Senate and the House before it is sent to the President. Had we had the opportunity, we would have voted on an amendment. I guarantee it would have passed this House and you would have had the full support of Democrats to strike that provision, and then we could have sent it back to the Senate.

We weren't forced to do this last week. There was an amendment made in the Rules Committee that the Rules Committee Republicans rejected, which would have made in order an amendment that would have stripped this provision from the bill.

That should have been done and could have been done. People made a conscious decision, on the other side of the aisle, not to include that amendment and make it in order. We shouldn't have to be here today trying to mop up the mess that has been created.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Walkinshaw).

Mr. Speaker, I have enormous respect for my colleagues and particularly those that serve on the Rules Committee, but this could have been dealt with last week.

There was no reason to pass this. By the way, Democrats were fighting for tax breaks and subsidies that makes health insurance more affordable for millions of Americans who go to work every day. We couldn't do that because the Speaker and Senator Thune, the majority leader, insisted it had to be a clean CR. It had to be a clean continuing resolution with no other provisions, yet somehow this got in there.

This wasn't clean. There is nothing clean about this. By the way, last week when we were considering this, had we made the amendment in order that we seem to be considering right now, it would have passed, presumably overwhelmingly, if what I am hearing from my colleagues is true. We could have sent the bill back to the Senate. I am sorry. I know we didn't want to impose on them and their time to take this out.

By the way, what these Republican Senators are saying was such an egregious abuse is something that every American is subject to, every single one of the 340 million Americans blessed to call this country our home have to go through, except these Senators because they think it is outrageous.

By the way, if you took this to its logical conclusion, a Senator that might participate in the overthrow of the United States Government, let's just say hypothetically was coordinating to do that, could not have the Department of Justice look at their phone records. It is the same thing they can do to every other one of the 340 million Americans, but not these Senators. God, no. They can't have that if there is some reason to suggest that they might have information that the Justice Department can't do it.

By the way, that wasn't the rule back when this happened in 2022. They are doing it retroactively. They are changing the law and going back 3 years and allowing them to sue the United States taxpayers for millions and millions of dollars.

Last night, a United States Senator said he intends to sue for tens of millions of dollars under this provision.

I can't imagine anything that would cause more anxiety to American taxpayers than to see this debate and understand what happened.

Respectfully, I appreciate it, but we could have dealt with this last week. We should have dealt with this last week. We shouldn't be here.

I will support the bill, but by the way, there is no guarantee that the United States Senate is going to take this up. This may all be for show just to make people feel guilty about having voted for this or wanting to convince voters back home that they really weren't complicit in giving this extraordinary bonanza to a handful of elitists who feel somehow aggrieved by the fact that they had information that might have actually been really helpful about looking at the potential overthrow of the 2020 Presidential election.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I hope today's debate was about more than simply a press release, about people trying to absolve themselves, and not just another waste of taxpayer time and money misleading the American people about the intentions of Senate Republicans.

The Senate should act on this measure. They should act on it today. Rarely in life is there a second chance to do the right thing.

I urge my colleagues here to do the right thing, and I certainly urge Members of the Senate to do the right thing, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6019) to repeal certain provisions relating to notification to Senate offices regarding legal process on disclosure of Senate data, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6019, introduced by my colleague, Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia.

Before I dive into the substance of this bill, let me highlight some good news. The government is open and funded. SNAP benefits are being funded. Air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and hardworking people are getting paid.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, if the Democrats had their way, the Federal Government would still be shut down. People wouldn't be receiving their SNAP benefits. Law enforcement officials at the Federal level wouldn't be receiving payments. Air traffic controllers and TSA agents also wouldn't be paid.

The good news is, Mr. Speaker, by passage of the underlying legislation that we are going to be discussing today, the government is open and operational for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, no bill is perfect, and the bill we passed to reopen the government is just that. It had a provision that needs repair, which we need to go in and remove out from that bill. The legislation by my colleague, Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia, does just that.

The troubling provision grants Senators a private cause of action against the United States. If a Senator's data, either official or personal, is retrieved without their knowledge, they can sue the government. It also included a provision to allow Senators to receive a minimum of $500,000 per instance of data retrieval. That policy, in my opinion and in the opinion, I think, of all the Members of this institution, is unacceptable.

No one should be able to enrich themselves because the Federal Government wronged them--no elected official should be able to.

Without question, there are far better ways to handle this. The legislative branch should correctly address the Biden administration's weaponization of the FBI to spy on United States Senators in its operation, Arctic Frost. The abuses, Mr. Speaker, by the Biden administration are completely unacceptable, and I am committed to holding those involved accountable.

No one benefited from the failures of the Biden administration. However, that does not mean that elected officials should be financially benefiting from those failures now.

These provisions are not the right path to address the concerns, true concerns, over the separation of powers. Remember, Congress serves the American people, not the other way around.

Today, we have an opportunity to take a good bill that reopened the Federal Government and make it better by repealing the provisions that were slid into the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2026.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support H.R. 6019 to repeal this legislation. I thank my colleague, Congressman Austin Scott, for bringing this legislation forward.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) to speak on his bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) to speak on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Hageman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on the majority.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before we close, I just want to wrap up a few things that have been discussed today.

We were closed as a Federal Government for 43 days because Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against a clean CR and then cheered on their Democratic colleagues in the United States Senate to keep the government closed as people suffered, as individuals who were showing up to work weren't receiving payment, including law enforcement officers and Border Patrol officers. SNAP benefits weren't being paid, and that pain was getting quite real.

Finally, after 43 days, eight Democratic Senators came to the table and said we should reopen the government. Those eight voted for this bill. I didn't hear my colleagues critique those eight Democrats in the United States Senate who were involved in drafting the final legislation. In fact, my suggestion the whole time was that the Senate should have passed the clean CR the House sent to them.

If we look at the record, time after time after time, Democrats in the United States Senate refused to pass the clean CR, which would have avoided this mess in the first place.

If we are curious as to who caused this problem, I think the answer, Mr. Speaker, is quite clear. Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the clean CR and then cheered on their Democratic colleagues in the United States Senate to keep this government closed.

As this came to the House, this provision was buried in it, but we had an obligation to reopen the Federal Government to make sure that law enforcement officers were getting paid, air traffic controllers were getting paid, and SNAP benefits were flowing once again, so we voted for it. Today is the opportunity to clean up this provision.

There are far better ways to address the abuses of the Biden administration, and those abuses do need to be addressed, just not in this mechanism.

I encourage all my colleagues in the House of Representatives to vote ``aye.'' I hope we have a unanimous vote tonight, as we pass H.R. 6019.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his leadership here and managing this bill on the floor on behalf of my friend from Georgia, who rightfully raised this issue in the Rules Committee on which he and I both serve. We both immediately raised this issue in front of the Rules Committee and for the entire body.

There is nobody, to the best of my knowledge, in this body who supports this language that was inserted in the end of the funding bill that we passed last week. I don't know anybody. I have yet to meet one person who supports it.

Mr. Speaker, rather than my colleagues on the other side of the aisle coming together in a bipartisan agreement that we are going to, as the House, hip-check the Senate for having put a provision in there that we disagree with, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to try to make this a partisan issue when, in fact, Senate Democrats were equally involved in making sure that this provision got inserted. In fact, they were very specific about only wanting a provision if it was only focused on the Senate.

They didn't want it to be used, for example, to help J6ers or FACE Act individuals who were abused by the Department of Justice under President Biden. They didn't want it to be a more expansive private right of action. Instead, they wanted it to be narrow and narrow for the Senate.

Rather than the House being in a bipartisan agreement, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to make it partisan. If we are going to make it partisan, let's be very clear: The reason we were in the position that we were in last week was that we had been shut down for 43 days. Why? Because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have literally nothing to run on.

The only thing my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can run on is

shutting down the government, making up nonsense about health in which they are going to enrich insurance companies in the process, and have nothing to take to the American people other than trying to create division.

The fact of the matter is, we are going to pass this legislation within days. We are going to send it to the Senate. We are going to make clear to the Senate that they need to correct this issue because the American people rightly are with us. The House of Representatives, Republican and Democrats, are rightly checking the Senate.

There is one last really important piece to this which is the Arctic Frost investigation itself, which specifically targeted United States Senators in an egregious abuse of power. It was targeting those Senators for their information and their records. That is something that is an absolute affront to separation of powers and to our constitutional order to have the Department of Justice targeting those Senators.

Those Senators were rightly wanting to find ways to stop Jack Smith and the abuses of the Department of Justice. We in this Chamber just simply believe that if you are going to do something like that, it should apply to all Americans and not be something specific to the United States Senate.

We are correcting this now. We should pass it immediately. The Senate should take it up and pass it. Also, a little personal message to the Senate: Take this up and pass it, or you are not getting any support from this Member for any of your measures that come over to this body.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6019, a bill that I am proud to be an original cosponsor of. It would repeal the indefensible Senate payday provision that was snuck into the critical funding legislation to reopen the government last week.

With the goal of ending the suffering caused by the Schumer shutdown top of mind, I voted yes on the CR. It was the right thing to do. I hope the American people are never again used as ``leverage.''

However, what the Senate sent us contained a poison pill, a provision to give certain Senators the ability to sue the Federal Government for $500,000, or perhaps millions of dollars, for alleged illegal surveillance conducted by the Biden DOJ. I remain convinced the last administration conducted a large number of politically motivated investigations. However, the solution isn't for aggrieved lawmakers to get a payday at taxpayer expense.

As Members of Congress, the people have entrusted us to be a check on the executive branch. They didn't send us here to collect checks when the executive oversteps.

All Members of the House should take issue with Senate leadership for secretly slipping in this provision. In fact, whoever carefully crafted this scheme failed to tell their Senate colleagues. I agree with Senator John Kennedy, who said: ``Whoever put this in had an obligation to tell us about it, and they didn't.''

The consensus of many legal experts is that this provision amounts to a pay increase. To me, the provision reads like a Christmas bonus, and that is blatantly unconstitutional. It defies the 27th Amendment, which says no law can change a lawmaker's compensation until a new Congress is sworn in.

If the House legislation we are debating today does not receive a vote in the Senate, I want to make it clear that I am taking action.

Today, I have introduced H. Res. 892, a House resolution that empowers Speaker Johnson to bring this issue before the courts and challenge the so-called Senate payday provision as blatantly unconstitutional.

Importantly, because my resolution is a House resolution, it does not require the consent or cooperation of the Senate, which has shamefully shown no willingness to undo this egregious policy. The House does not have to wait for the Senate to act and watch idly while this payday stands.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support Representative Scott's legislation and to support my resolution so we can stand up for the integrity of Congress, uphold the Constitution, and restore public trust in this institution.

Mr. Speaker, wow. There has been a lot said in the last few minutes.

Let's be clear: Senate Democratic leadership knew about the language, as well as Senate Republican leadership. Both sides knew about this language.

Nobody in the House supported this language. This language did not go through any committee in the Senate, did not go through any committee in the House, and could never be passed and signed into law if it was discussed openly where the American citizens could actually see and understand what was happening.

We were given a choice the other day, open the government or keep the government closed.

The people on my side of the aisle, almost unanimously, voted to open the government. I am glad that we ended the chaos, Mr. Speaker. I want you to know that because if the Democrats had had their way, the chaos would be ensuing today.

There is a provision in this bill that I believe is probably the most self-centered, self-serving piece of language that I have ever seen in my time in office in any piece of legislation. For the people who are saying it is $500,000, I want the American citizens to know this: It is not $500,000. It is $500,000 per account, per occurrence.

We have one Senator, one, who maintains that this provision is good and is currently saying that he is going to sue for tens of millions of dollars. I believe my side did the right thing in voting to open up the government. There are a select few people that did the wrong thing in putting language in the bill that would make themselves individually wealthy.

All this language does is repeals that. All this does is repeals that one provision of the law that would enrich what is now down to one individual Member saying they are going to sue for tens of millions of dollars.

There is not a whole lot to debate here. I hope all of the House will vote unanimously to do it. Then I hope that, like yesterday, Senator Thune will immediately put the bill on the floor, so we can immediately get this to the President's desk and get back to doing the business of the people now that the government is open.