House repeals law allowing Tuberville, senators to sue over phone searches

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House unanimously voted to repeal a law Thursday that allows U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville and other senators to sue the government for seizing their phone records without their knowledge.

The U.S. Senate slipped the provision into the legislation that reopened the government in November. It allows eight Republican senators to sue for $500,000 if their phone records are obtained without prior notification. Bipartisan lawmakers in the House quickly condemned the Senate’s last-minute addition to the funding deal last year.

The House’s stark rebuke now jams the Senate into having to vote to cancel the law when it takes up the final spending package to fund the government before the Saturday deadline. If the upper chamber doesn’t pass the last six of the 12 annual appropriations bills this week, there will be a partial shutdown.

Tuberville previously told Alabama Daily News that he planned to “sue the heck out of them” in response to federal investigators obtaining his phone records as part of their investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Alabama’s senior senator did not clarify whether he would sue the federal government or just the Biden administration officials.

A spokesperson for Tuberville did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, previously expressed deep frustration with the provision, vowing to reverse it.

​​“I did not appreciate that, nor did most of the House members,” Johnson said in November.

With the House now in recess and members not planning to return to Washington until after the funding deadline, lawmakers are essentially forcing senators to comply with the repeal. Senators are set to return to the Capitol Tuesday after the winter storm shortened the work week for lawmakers.

In November, the House unanimously voted to repeal the law, but the Senate has yet to take up that legislation. Attaching it to the funding bill was the best chance House members had at getting the reversal through the upper chamber.

As the House voted to get rid of the law Thursday, former special counsel Jack Smith was testifying in the House Judiciary Committee, where he defended his investigations into President Donald Trump, including on Jan. 6. During the hearing, Republicans repeatedly questioned him over obtaining the lawmakers’ phone records.