Just in time for the holidays, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate appear itchy for a big family fight.

That growing tension was on display during a late vote on Nov. 19. House members voted unanimously that night to rebuke the Senate Republican leadership for slipping into legislation a sneaky provision that allows eight Republican senators to stuff their pockets with millions of dollars from your taxes. That legislation ended the 43-day government shutdown on Nov. 12.

The House voted 426 to 0 – 216 Republicans and 210 Democrats – to approve a two-page bill that specifically revokes that provision to let senators sue because their phone records were subpoenaed by former special counsel Jack Smith during his investigation into potential election interference after the 2020 presidential race.

The Senate legislation to reopen the government last week, running to 161 pages, includes a brief passage on page 94 that said any senator whose phone data was "subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed" could sue the federal government for up to $500,000 for each instance when that happened.

Keep in mind: These senators did not have their phone lines tapped during the investigation. Federal investigators were not listening in on their calls. They asked a federal judge for permission and received approval to examine phone records after the calls were made. That kind of thing happens every day in federal investigations.

But only these eight senators – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming – get to sue our government for millions of dollars for standard investigation procedures.

Congress is divided on senators' sneaky cash grab

Most of the representatives and senators voting for the continuing resolution to reopen the government didn't know that a provision had been slipped secretly into the deal.

House Speaker Mike Johnson was one of them, and the Louisiana Republican let that be known on the day after the legislation to reopen the government passed in both chambers. Johnson said on Nov. 13 that he was "very angry" and so were many of his Republican colleagues in the House.

"I think that was way out of line," Johnson said. "I don't think that was a smart thing to do ... and the House is going to reverse it; we're going to repeal that. And I'm going to expect our colleagues in the Senate to do the same thing."

Not so fast, said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who slipped the controversial provision into the government restart legislation. He has shown little interest this week in undoing his sneaky maneuver, even as fellow Republicans decry it.

But now Thune is on the spot with a unanimously passed bill from the House, supported by 216 Republican representatives, arriving for consideration in the Senate. He could bottle up the bill and hope for this all to pass. But it's likely that would just increase the pressure in this Republican strife, especially if the senators move to cash in on Thune's generosity with your money.

Thune can call this enrichment scheme off

There certainly is evidence of Republican leadership in one chamber of Congress just flat out ignoring the concerns of Republican leadership in the other chamber. Thune showed us this week.

House members forced Johnson to hold a vote on legislation requiring the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files, a massive trove of documents about the now-dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, once a very close friend to President Donald Trump. That passed in the House by a 427-1 vote on Nov. 18.

Johnson, who never wanted that vote to happen, expressed concerns about how the legislation was written in the House and called on Thune to rewrite it before the Senate voted.

Thune rejected that, noting that the measure passed overwhelmingly in the House, just before it was approved in the Senate by unanimous consent.

Thune's argument on the Epstein files legislation was that it passed by a huge margin in the House, and so must be fine to consider in the Senate. But Thune's approach to legislation passed unanimously in the House to deny some senators get-rich-quick lawsuit status is to question whether the Senate should even consider it.

If Johnson was angry last week, he should be fuming now about Thune running defense for this boondoggle. You know who comes out happy in all this? Democrats.

Thirty-three senators – 32 Democrats and independent Angus King of Maine – on Nov. 19 called on Republicans in their chamber to repeal the "secretive, self-dealing provision." Those senators noted that the provision "has drawn strong rebukes from Democrats and many Republicans," while emphasizing Johnson's anger about it.

Those same senators on Nov. 18 introduced their own legislation, the Anti-Cash Grab Act, a two-page bill to prevent the eight Republican senators from enriching themselves because federal investigators looked at their phone records with a judge's permission.

That must be an uncomfortable feeling for Thune, with Johnson and so many Republicans in the House aligned against him, with 33 senators in his own chamber.

Thune has a way out – by doing the right thing – killing the provision he never should have snuck into law in the first place.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP splits over cash grab ploy Senate hid in shutdown bill | Opinion

Reporting by Chris Brennan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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