GOP unity shattered by controversial measure in government shutdown bill
'The lords don’t like to be told by mere commoners what to do,' Rep Chip Roy tells Fox News Digital
By Elizabeth Elkind , Alex Miller Fox News
Published November 14, 2025 10:40am EST
The House is expected to vote next week on repealing a controversial measure in the bill that ended the government shutdown.
It caused heartburn for House Republicans in the final days of the shutdown and provided fresh ammo for Democrats hoping to delay their federal funding legislation in its final hours.
The provision, tucked into the Legislative Branch appropriations bill and dubbed "Requiring Senate Notification for Senate Data," would allow senators directly targeted in former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the U.S. government for up to $500,000.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who was involved in crafting part of the successful funding deal, told Fox News Digital he had even been afraid it could derail the final vote to end the shutdown.
"It had been done without our knowledge. I mean, it had been added in the Senate without our knowledge," Cole said. "It was a real trust factor … I mean, all of a sudden, this pops up in the bill, and we're confronted with either leave this in here, or we pull it out, we have to go to conference, and the government doesn't get reopened."
It was placed into the bill by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and given the green light by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sources confirmed to Fox News Digital.
Thune put the provision into the bill at the request of members of the Senate GOP, a source familiar with the negotiations told Fox News Digital, which included Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
It was a big point of contention when the House Rules Committee met to prepare the legislation for a final vote on Tuesday night. Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Austin Scott, R-Ga., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., all shared House Democrats’ frustration with the measure, but they made clear it would not stand in the way of ending what had become the longest shutdown in history.
Those Republicans agreed with the motivations behind their Senate counterparts wanting to sue but bristled over the notion that it would come at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
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