Meeting with Georgia College Students

Last week, on Tuesday, I had the pleasure of meeting with students from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville.

Hearing from our youth is important for the work we do in Congress. Our students are part of our future and, in some years, they may be the ones crafting important legislation. It is always encouraging to see students that are actively involved and participating in the legislative process.

Supporting our Troops

Last week, on Thursday, the House of Representatives passed appropriations for the Department of Defense.

The legislation included a 3.8% pay raise for our troops, along with quality of life improvements for military families. It also will fund training, exercises, maritime activities, flying hours, equipment maintenance, and base operations to ensure our soldiers are always ready.

To deter our adversaries, the bill includes language that maximizes the production of munitions to continue countering countries like China, Russia, and Iran.

House Republicans have made it clear: We support our troops always.

Securing our Borders

Also on Thursday of last week, House Republicans passed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2026.

This important funding bill will stop Biden's catch-and-release programs, increase resources to find, detain, and deport illegal immigrants, and expand efforts to stop deadly fentanyl before it hits our streets and poisons Americans.

The legislation also requires truckers to be proficient in English and blocks illegal immigrants from taxpayer funded housing. 

Managing Debate on the House Floor

Last week, I managed the debate on the House Floor for several pieces of legislation. Watch my full remarks here.

House jams Senate with repeal of phone records law that could enrich senators

The House on Thursday moved to jam the Senate with a repeal of a law that allowed senators to sue for substantial sums if they weren’t notified when law enforcement sought their phone records — adding the repeal to a government funding bill that the Senate will have to approve next week or risk a government shutdown. 

The move is payback for the Senate originally jamming the House with the provision a few months ago as part of a bill to reopen the government after the longest-ever government shutdown. House members were blindsided and angered by the provision but swallowed it as to not extend the government shutdown.

The House on Thursday morning unanimously voted to add language repealing the law to a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security. The underlying bill is scheduled for a vote on passage Thursday afternoon.

With the House slated to leave for a weeklong recess, the Senate will be stuck with the repeal — having to either approve it, or risk a partial government shutdown at the end of the month.

“The Senate is going to do what the Senate is going to do. They accept the bill and the government doesn’t shut down,” said Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who had long led a repeal effort.

“If they think that what they did is good policy and should be the law, then they should have an open debate and an open hearing on it — and a vote on it, where the public knows the vote’s coming,” Scott said.

Under the law, senators — but not House members — have the ability to sue for $500,000 if their records were subpoenaed or obtained without notifying them first. It is a direct response to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) revealing last year that former special counsel Jack Smith’s “Arctic Frost” investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election sought phone records from 10 Republican senators and one House member, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), whose staffer was involved in trying to help deliver names of fake electors.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said at the time he was “very angry” about the provision, describing it as “way out of line.”

The addition of the amendment is a follow-up to a bill that the House passed in a rare bipartisan vote in November. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has defended the law and declined to hold a vote undoing the law in the Senate.

Most of the affected senators said they would not seek financial damages over the Arctic Frost issue, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had said he did plan to sue the government for $500,000 over the phone records provision.

As the House voted to repeal the law, Smith, the former special counsel, was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee and got a grilling from Republicans over the phone records issue, saying that at the time his subpoenas of phone records was consistent with department policy.

Read the full article here.