Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts voted on March 5, 2025 to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's oversight of the biggest payment apps (roll call 106), including Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, and Facebook, a step Consumer Reports said puts the privacy of their sensitive financial data at risk. On June 30, 2025, he voted against keeping the bureau's funding, which the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut to $446 million for 2025.
Ricketts also voted to confirm the officials who gave immigration agents and other agencies Americans' private records: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agreement sent ICE more than 47,000 records from tax files before a court held it unlawful; HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz, whose agency gave ICE access to Medicaid enrollees' addresses; and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department collected the records of more than 437,500 people who received food aid in Nebraska.
Pete Ricketts's Votes on Consumer Privacy and the Officials Who Shared Americans' Records
- Ricketts Voted to End Federal Privacy Oversight of the Biggest Payment Apps in March 2025. On March 5, 2025, Pete Ricketts voted yes on S.J.Res. 28, which passed 51-47 and repealed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that let it supervise the largest payment apps, including for compliance with the privacy provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Congressional Research Service explained. Consumer Reports said the repeal puts the privacy of their sensitive financial data at risk, because payment app providers collect extensive personal data from users and share that information widely with other companies.
- Ricketts Voted Against Restoring the Consumer Bureau's Funding in June 2025. On June 30, 2025, Ricketts voted no on a motion to strike the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's cut to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding cap; it failed 47-53. He then voted for the bill, which passed 50-50 with the Vice President's vote. The cut decreased the funding cap in FY2025 to $446 million from $823 million, nearly a 50 percent reduction in funding for the agency that supervises payment apps, credit bureaus and data brokers.
- Ricketts Cast a Deciding Vote for the Law That Paid for ICE's Surveillance Buildup. On July 1, 2025, Ricketts voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 50-50 with the Vice President's vote and gave ICE $75 billion over four years. Brookings found ICE's tools, some of which were funded by the law, include facial recognition technology, automatic license plate readers, cell-site simulators, phone location databases. ICE also resumed a $2 million contract with the spyware manufacturer, Paragon, whose software can harvest messages from multiple different encrypted chat apps, and checks faces against a database of 200 million photos, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported.
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm the Two Officials Who Sent Taxpayers' IRS Records to ICE. Ricketts voted to confirm Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security on January 25, 2025 (roll call 17) and Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary on January 27, 2025 (roll call 19). In April 2025 their departments signed an agreement for the IRS to give ICE taxpayers' addresses, and the IRS turned over more than 47,000 records ultimately deemed unlawful, and a court found it broke the tax privacy law "approximately 42,695 times". In September 2026 a federal appeals court held the agreement indisputably contravenes the requirements of the law.
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm the Health Officials Who Gave ICE Access to Medicaid Records. Ricketts voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS Secretary on February 13, 2025 and Mehmet Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid on April 3, 2025 (roll call 167). Their agency agreed last spring to give ICE officials direct access to a Medicaid database that includes enrollees’ addresses and citizenship status. A court limited the sharing for the states that sued, but deportation officials have access to personal Medicaid information of all enrollees in the remaining 28 states, and court filings showed ICE shared Medicaid data it shouldn’t have with Palantir.
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm Brooke Rollins, Whose Department Collected Food-Aid Recipients' Personal Records From Nebraska. On February 13, 2025, Ricketts voted to confirm Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture. In 2025 her department demanded that states turn over records on food-aid recipients back to 2020, including their names, dates of birth, home addresses, Social Security numbers and benefits amounts, and Nebraska submitted 12.5 million lines of data for more than 437,500 people, NPR reported. Democratic state officials have argued the data demand is unlawful and likely part of a pattern of gathering Americans' personal data for purposes that include immigration enforcement.
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm the Social Security Commissioner Whose Agency Admitted DOGE May Have Misused Records. On May 6, 2025, Ricketts voted to confirm Frank Bisignano as Commissioner of Social Security. In a January 2026 court filing, the government conceded that DOGE associates may have improperly accessed sensitive data at the agency, including sharing of data via a third-party Cloudflare server; a whistleblower had alleged the copying put "more than 300 million people's personal information at risk".
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm Russell Vought, Who Dropped a Rule to Stop Data Brokers From Selling Americans' Information. On February 6, 2025, Ricketts voted to confirm Russell Vought as budget director. As acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Vought withdrew a proposed rule against data brokers selling sensitive information, in a notice he issued as acting director of the agency; the bureau had warned that identity thieves and scammers purchase detailed financial profiles to target vulnerable consumers. By March 2025, 90% of the CFPB's staff had been cut, the Associated Press reported.
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm the FCC Commissioner Who Helped Repeal Phone-Network Security Rules. On June 18, 2025, Ricketts voted to confirm Olivia Trusty to the Federal Communications Commission. In November 2025, Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty approved the reversal of a rule requiring phone companies to secure their networks, which had been introduced in the aftermath of the China-linked Salt Typhoon intrusions into U.S. carriers.
What the Data Sharing and Consumer-Protection Cuts Pete Ricketts Backed Mean in Nebraska
- Food-aid records. Nebraska turned over 12.5 million lines of data on SNAP recipients to the Agriculture Department, records that under the department's demand include names, dates of birth, home addresses, Social Security numbers and benefits amounts, NPR reported.
- Voter records. Nebraska is among the 16 states that have provided complete statewide voter registration lists, including driver’s license and Social Security numbers to the Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom Ricketts voted to confirm, the Brennan Center found.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pete Ricketts on Big Tech and privacy
What is Pete Ricketts's record on privacy under Trump?
Pete Ricketts voted to repeal federal privacy oversight of the biggest payment apps and against restoring the consumer bureau's funding, and voted to confirm Bessent, Noem, Kennedy, Oz and Rollins, whose agencies gave ICE tax and Medicaid records and collected food-aid records from the states. The IRS turned over more than 47,000 records before a court held the sharing unlawful, and Nebraska sent the Agriculture Department data on more than 437,500 people.
Did Pete Ricketts vote to let the IRS share taxpayer data with ICE?
Pete Ricketts cast no vote on the agreement itself, but he voted to confirm the two officials who signed it, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (roll call 19) and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (roll call 17). The IRS turned over more than 47,000 records before a court stopped it.
Did Pete Ricketts vote to cut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?
Yes. Pete Ricketts voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which decreased the funding cap in FY2025 to $446 million from $823 million, and on June 30, 2025 voted against a motion to undo the cut (roll call 341).
Last updated: 2026-10-25