- Video shows constituents and protesters who attended Flood's town hall on Tuesday.
- During a town hall on Tuesday Congressman Mike Flood told his constituents he did not read a portion of the Big Beautiful Bill that limits judicial checks and balances before voting to pass it. He promised constituents he is working to ensure the provision doesn't make it into the final bill.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Before the doors even opened a line of concerned constituents started to form outside of Congressman Flood’s town hall Tuesday night.
Colleen Nygern was at the front of that line.
“I want to ask him specifically about section 70302 of HR1,” said Nygern.
Section 70302 was tucked away more than 500 pages into the more than 1100 page HR1 budget bill, better known as Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
The brief section states,
"No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), whether issued prior to, on, or subsequent to the date of enactment of this section."
That line would allow officials to ignore judicial orders without the consequences of being held in contempt, and the provision would be retroactive to any current injunction or restraining orders placed on the Trump administration.
“It legislates away the ability for Federal Courts to enforce their contempt charges, and this is in a budget bill and doesn’t belong there,” said Nygern.
Colleen’s question was the first one asked at the town hall and Flood’s answer shocked the crowd.
“Im not going to hide the truth, this provision was unknown to me when I voted for that bill,” said Flood.
“You say, oh I care about the rule of law but you voted for a bill that contains a provision that guts the checks the judicial branch has and you didn’t even read it? It’s ridiculous,” responded one constituent.
While Flood was unaware when he voted he did tell the crowd once he learned about the provision he immediately started reaching out to colleagues to ensure that it isn’t in the final version of the bill.
“When I return to Washington I am going to very clearly tell the people in my conference that we cannot support undermining our court system and we must allow our courts to operate and issue injunctions,” said Flood.
Flood’s promises though, weren’t enough for many in the crowd including Colleen, who walked out saying she couldn’t listen to more of Flood’s answers.
I asked Colleen if, even after Flood’s answers, she was still concerned.
“Absolutely because thats what Trump is trying to do and put it in there secretly,” said Nygern.
We reached out to Nebraska's other Congressman Don Bacon and Adrian Smith to get their take on the provision.
In a statement to KMTV Bacon said,
“ I knew about this provision and I’m totally fine if the Senate strips it out. I was most interested in not raising the average Nebraskan family’s taxes by $1700, fixing our national defense, making our country the preeminent energy in the world, and fixing our border security. I invested much of my time to protect the most vulnerable populations receiving Medicaid and SNAP while improving program integrity and got big wins there. Thus, I voted on a good bill and hope the Senate makes it better.”
Smith was more supportive of the provision saying in a statement to KMTV,
“Courts play a vital role in upholding the rule of law in our nation’s systems of checks and balances, and federal law requires litigants to be responsible when they seek nationwide injunctions in our court system. This provision reinforces those existing requirements to ensure federal law is adhered to, and I support its inclusion in the reconciliation bill passed by the House.”
