Repeal of Senate Notification Requirements Relating to Legal Process on Disclosures of Senate Data

Floor Speech

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Mr. STEIL. 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.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 6019

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. REPEAL OF SENATE NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO LEGAL PROCESS ON DISCLOSURES OF SENATE DATA.

Section 213 of title II of division C of the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026, and the amendments made by such section, are hereby repealed and shall have no force or effect.

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. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. 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.
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Mr. STEIL. Hageman).

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.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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