Members of Congress Are Angling for More Money for Security Details Following Minnesota Assassination

Senators say they are working in a bipartisan way to fund additional security measures for members of Congress both on and off Capitol Hill. Concerns about members’ safety have been more prevalent in recent years, especially since the 2017 congressional baseball shooting and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. After a former Minnesota state house of representatives speaker, Melissa Hortman, was assassinated over the weekend, lawmakers returned to Washington more determined to beef up security. Speaking at the Capitol on Tuesday, Senator Schumer said it was clear to Republican and Democratic senators alike that “significantly more resources” are required in order to keep lawmakers safe. Senators had received a security briefing from Capitol Police on Tuesday morning. “We did get some very hopeful signs in the meeting and in discussions after that we would get that support,” Mr. Schumer said of additional funding for Capitol Police security measures. Although Republicans control the chamber, they will have to work with Democrats to break the 60-vote filibuster threshold in order to fund the government at the end of the fiscal year in September. “In terms of timing: ASAP,” the Democratic Senate leader said at his press conference. The Capitol Police are governed by the Senate Rules Committee, which is currently led by Senator McConnell. The top Democrat on the panel, Senator Padilla, said he has had productive conversations with Republican colleagues about increasing funding for member security. In the meantime, Mr. Padilla says Capitol Police are “leveraging a lot of partnerships with our state law enforcement agencies and our local sheriffs’ departments and police departments throughout the country.”“For the long term, there needs to be a significant increase in the resources they have to work with,” Mr. Padilla told reporters on Tuesday. A former chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Senator Klobuchar, said at a press conference that the need for additional security has never been more apparent. “We went from 1,700 threats in 2016 to over 9,000 threats against members of Congress last year. We have also seen more threats against judges, and the like. So, the funding is a major piece of it,” she told reporters. On the House side of the Capitol, lawmakers are asking Attorney General Bondi to work more proactively in identifying and punishing those who make threats against members of Congress. “To address these threats, USCP has requested and received assistance from three Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys (SAUSAs),” the top Republican and Democrat on the Administration Committee, Congressman Bryan Steil and Congressman Joe Morelle, write to Ms. Bondi. “In 2024, these SAUSAs secured eight convictions nationwide for threats against Members and other government officials. This is in sharp contrast to the 9,474 known communications involving concerning statements or direct threats to Members,” the lawmakers say.Messrs. Steil and Morelle write that Ms. Bondi ought to designate one prosecutor in each of the United States’s 94 federal prosecutorial districts to handle threats against members of Congress. “We are concerned that the current lack of prosecutorial capacity will allow threat behavior to persist unabated because the risk of consequential action is small, in part due to the perceived anonymity of modern communications,” the congressmen write.

Members of Congress Are Angling for More Money for Security Details Following Minnesota Assassination

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