HR-10326-119
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Sponsored by Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)
What it does
This bill would require state agencies administering certain federally funded programs (Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, unemployment insurance, COVID-era relief funds, broadband and housing grants, and other federal programs the Attorney General identifies as vulnerable to fraud) to turn over records like identity verification data, benefit disbursement logs, and provider billing statements when the Attorney General makes a written request for a fraud investigation. It sets data security, use-limitation, and destruction requirements for the Department of Justice, and requires annual reporting to Congress on requests made and outcomes.
Who benefits
Federal law enforcement agencies investigating fraud, taxpayers whose funds are protected from fraudulent claims, and state fraud-prevention units that gain a federal partner with subpoena-like authority. Individuals who might otherwise be victims of identity theft tied to fraudulent benefit claims could also indirectly benefit.
Who is hurt
State agencies that must build compliance systems to respond to federal requests, potentially straining administrative budgets and staff time. Program beneficiaries (Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, and unemployment recipients) whose personal data—including demographic information—could be shared with federal law enforcement, raising privacy concerns, particularly for immigrant or low-income populations wary of government data sharing. Providers billing these programs may also face increased scrutiny.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that federal pandemic-era programs alone lost tens of billions of dollars to fraud according to inspector general reports, and that state agencies often lack the resources or authority to fully investigate cross-border or complex fraud schemes. They contend that mandatory information sharing, paired with encryption, use limitations, and mandatory data destruction requirements, strikes a reasonable balance between fraud enforcement and privacy protection.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that the broad catch-all provision allowing the Attorney General to demand "any other information" deemed appropriate, and to designate additional programs as "vulnerable to fraud," gives federal law enforcement expansive discretion with limited independent oversight. They contend that requiring states to disclose sensitive demographic and identity data on low-income beneficiaries risks chilling program participation and creates surveillance infrastructure that could be repurposed beyond fraud investigation despite the stated use limitations.
Constitutional context
Congress's authority to condition state administration of federally funded programs on data-sharing requirements rests on the Spending Clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 1), similar to the framework applied in South Dakota v. Dole (1987), which permits conditions on federal funds so long as they are reasonably related to program purposes. Anti-commandeering principles from Printz v. United States (1997) and Murphy v. NCAA (2018) may also be implicated if states view the mandatory disclosure requirement as compelling state officials to act on the federal government's behalf.
Checks and balances
The bill expands executive branch (DOJ) authority to compel state data disclosure with minimal judicial or state-level checks beyond the annual reporting requirement to congressional committees.
Historical precedent
Federal-state data-sharing mandates for fraud detection have precedent in programs like the National Directory of New Hires and IRS-state tax data exchanges, though this bill's scope across many disparate programs with a broad catch-all provision is more expansive than typical prior arrangements.