US House votes unanimously to repeal budget bill provision allowing Ron Johnson to sue DOJ over phone record search

The U.S. House voted unanimously Wednesday to repeal a provision tucked into the government funding bill allowing Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson to sue federal justice officials for at least $500,000 for obtaining his phone records.

The 426-0 vote included all eight of Wisconsin’s U.S. House members, both Republican and Democrat. U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, said in a speech ahead of the vote that no elected official “should be able to enrich themselves because the federal government wronged them.”

The funding bill provision creates a new path for Johnson and seven other U.S. senators to sue U.S. Justice Department officials who obtained their phone records amid an investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden. Johnson’s office was involved in attempting to get a slate of false electors from Wisconsin and Michigan to former Vice President Mike Pence before Congress certified Biden’s win on Jan 6, 2021.

Ken Mayer, a professor of American politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email to WPR that the provision would probably lead to the federal government settling and paying Johnson and the other senators.

“It’s banana republic crony capitalist bulls—,” Mayer said.

“It ought to be a career-ending scandal for everyone involved,” Mayer continued. “But it won’t because too many have become numbed to flagrant and obvious corruption and self-dealing that is occurring on a daily basis.”

Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the provision and the House vote to repeal it. Last week, Johnson told the the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he has “no plans” to take advantage of the law change, but said if he did sue, “it would only be for the purpose of using the courts to expose the corrupt weaponization of federal law enforcement by the Biden and Obama administrations.”

The provision in question was added to the short-term federal budget bill that ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Johnson voted for that bill, as did all six Republican members of the U.S. House from Wisconsin.

After news of the provision came to light, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed the House would pass a standalone bill repealing it, calling the change “a really bad look.”

On Wednesday, Steil called the provision “unacceptable.”

“No elected official should be able to do that,” Steil told his colleagues on the House floor.

Steil said he thinks Congress should correct “the Biden administration’s weaponization of the FBI to spy on United States senators” and he’s committed to correcting it.

“However, that does not mean that elected officials should be financially benefiting from those failures,” Steil said.

It’s rare to see a unanimous, bipartisan vote on a provision as controversial as this one, said Paul Nolette, the director of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University.

“But the outrage that came about once this provision came to light has gotten both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate alike very angry about how this got into the bill and and why,” Nolette told WPR.

Nolette said to many, the provision “seems like almost the definition of self-dealing” in which lawmakers pass legislation only benefitting themselves.

Still, Nollette said the Senate doesn’t have to act on the House bill repealing the measure even though “politically, it’d be very hard for them to drag their feet.” As of Thursday, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune had not committed to bringing the bill up for a vote in that chamber. Democrats attempted to force the issue on the Senate floor, but the effort was blocked by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

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