Congress flouted several legal principles with an unusual provision creating a streamlined path only for senators to file lawsuits and collect at least $1 million each for government actions in the previous administration, experts and critics say.

That includes a constitutional limitation on lawmaker pay increases, creating a new award applied to past actions and giving a right to file lawsuits on a topic to a group of lawmakers only, those experts say.

In a different context, such a provision might be challenged as unconstitutional. But, in part because the government would be paying the damages and the provision limits defenses, it’s unclear whether and how the provision could be challenged in court and who would do it.

The provision, part of the spending package passed this week to

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