US Senate payout provision repealed

Congress repealed a measure that allowed U.S. senators to sue the Justice Department and receive $500,000 or more for subpoenaed phone records.

The repeal was included in appropriations bills that President Donald Trump signed into law Tuesday. Sen. Martin Heinrich sponsored the original repeal legislation and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández sponsored a similar measure in the House, although both New Mexico Democrats voted against the appropriations package.

The now-repealed “Arctic Frost” measure required the FBI and the Justice Department to notify Congress when a senator is under investigation and if their personal information is being subpoenaed, and retroactively allowed senators to sue the Justice Department for $500,000 in compensation for each phone record accessed. Eight Republican senators could have benefited from it immediately, as their phone records were subpoenaed during a federal investigation for an election interference case against Trump.

“Getting this done is a win for taxpayers and a rejection of an ill-conceived cash grab that would have taken money away from public safety and used it to line politicians' pockets,” Heinrich said in a statement.

The shutdown deal was delayed last week over South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s objections to repealing the lawsuit provision. The Republican senator championed the measure when it first passed into law last year. In a floor speech, Graham criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for not speaking with him about the repeal ahead of House passage. Graham said he would have been willing to remove compensation for senators from the “Arctic Frost” provision, but thinks senators should still be notified when their phone records are subpoenaed.

“We should all want to be notified as senators in a separate branch of government (that) the executive branch is looking at our phone records, unless we’re charged or being investigated for a crime,” Graham said.