{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-block-senators-from-accessing-500000-personal-windfalls-of-taxpayer-money", "Kaine, Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Block Senators from Accessing $500,000 Personal Windfalls of Taxpayer Money", "2025-11-18", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "VA", "Tim Kaine", "K000384", "www.kaine.senate.gov", "kaine", "https://www.kaine.senate.gov/news", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) joined U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and 25 additional Democratic senators in introducing the Anti-Cash Grab Act, legislation to repeal a provision from the Senate government funding bill that would allow senators to collect $500,000 for each instance when their phone records were obtained in accordance with the law by law enforcement. The provision was quietly added into the funding bill by U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) at the last minute, following reporting that eight Senate Republicans\u2019 phone records were reviewed as part of a Justice Department criminal investigation into President Donald Trump\u2019s involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m relieved that last week\u2019s deal has reinstated federal workers who were baselessly fired, ended the pain and chaos caused by President Trump and congressional Republicans\u2019 government shutdown, and secured an upcoming vote to strengthen Americans\u2019 health care,\u201d said Kaine. \u201cBut I\u2019m furious that Senate Republicans tucked a ridiculous provision into the legislation to give Republican senators personal windfalls of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. That\u2019s unacceptable, and I\u2019m going to work alongside my Democratic colleagues to do everything we can to block that from happening.\u201d\n\nA one-page summary of the bill is here.\n\nThe full text of the bill is here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-block-senators-from-accessing-500000-personal-windfalls-of-taxpayer-money"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6323546878993511, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}