New Mexico lawmakers introduce bills to repeal US Senate payout provision

New Mexicans are leading bills in Congress to reverse a measure that allows U.S. senators to sue the government and receive $500,000 or more for subpoenaed phone records.

A stopgap funding bill signed into law last week ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. It also included a provision that requires the FBI and the Justice Department to notify Congress when a senator is under investigation and if their personal information is being subpoenaed. The controversial provision allows senators to sue the Justice Department and receive $500,000 in compensation for proven violations.

Eight Republican senators could benefit from the provision, as their phone records were subpoenaed during a federal investigation for an election interference case against President Donald Trump.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., introduced a bill in the House to repeal the provision, as did Republican Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia. Scott’s bill seems likely to pass, Leger Fernández said.

The provision “is corruption dressed up as legislation,” she said.

Leger Fernández attempted to amend the stopgap funding bill before it passed the House last week to remove the provision. Every member of New Mexico’s congressional delegation voted against the funding bill because it did not address expiring health insurance subsidies.

“They are willing to give themselves millions when they were not willing to do a tax credit for working families to help them with health insurance,” Leger Fernández said.

So far, Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., are leading the only bill in the Senate to repeal the measure.

“Negotiating a $500,000 windfall for yourself while refusing to help everyday Americans is wrong and deserves to be called out,” Heinrich said in a statement.

There are some differences between the three bills, although all three would largely accomplish the same goal. The Republican-led House bill would be effective upon the date it passed, Heinrich’s Senate bill would be effective retroactively to the date of the stopgap funding bill’s passage, while Leger Fernández’s bill includes a requirement that any senator who received a violation payment would have to return it.

Heinrich’s bill has 27 cosponsors, Scott has gathered 37 cosponsors and Leger Fernández’s bill also has 37. Leger Fernández said she is willing to vote for Scott’s bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is one of the eight senators who the provision could already apply to and has said he plans to file a lawsuit.

“If you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars, no. I’m going to make it so painful no one ever does this again,” Graham told reporters last week, saying the change would protect the Senate into the future.

Other senators who the legislation could already apply to have said they do not plan to seek damages, like Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.

“I do not want and I am not seeking damages for myself paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Hagerty said in a statement on social media. Although he remains critical of the federal investigation into 2020 election interference, calling it an “abuse of power.”