As House Speaker Mike Johnson gathered lawmakers this week to mourn Charlie Kirk, he summed up the grief felt by many on Capitol Hill — and the pervasive fear.
“For so many of us, it has felt as if the ground was shaken,” said Johnson.
The killing of Kirk, the prominent conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder, has unnerved lawmakers in both parties, amplifying their long-standing concerns about safety in a heated political climate where threats against political rivals and calls to violence have become frighteningly common.
Responding to those concerns, Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Thursday night engineered unanimous passage of a measure that will allow senators to use money designated for their offices and staff for security purposes. Members of the House are pushing for increased security funding as well.
It’s all part of a significant shift for lawmakers who increasingly feel that their engagement in public life requires the same kinds of security precautions long reserved for the president and members of the Cabinet.
Unlike the president and other top executive branch officials, rank-and-file lawmakers are often unaccompanied by security agents when they are off Capitol Hill, which is guarded by the U.S. Capitol Police. Some members of Congress pay for private security out of private or campaign funds.
The number of threat assessment cases handled by the Capitol Police has grown steadily over the past four years. The department says it tracked more than 9,000 cases of reported threats in 2024 and is on track to handle roughly 14,000 by the end of this year.
“This is a national security issue. This is a big deal and we’re taking it very seriously,” said Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who was in a group of GOP lawmakers who met with Johnson multiple times this week to push for more security money in a package to fund the federal government.
Luna said many of the lawmakers have faced security threats — to themselves or their loved ones — that are the subject of law enforcement investigations. Lawmakers say they now routinely face death threats, “swatting” calls, bomb scares and vandalism at their offices.
“We’ve been needing this,” Luna said. “The fact that it took for this to happen to even address this is crazy to me, but it needs to be dealt with.”
The government funding bill passed by the Republican-controlled House on Friday would add about $88 million in security money for lawmakers and members of the Supreme Court and executive branch.
A temporary program that offers a monthly stipend for House members doubled its funding to $10,000 per member from $5,000. The House Administration Committee launched the program in July after the assassination of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband.
Through the program, House lawmakers are also allowed to spend up to $20,000 on in-home security equipment.
The cash infusion does not affect the president, who is protected by a separate budget for the Secret Service, or the Capitol Police, which guards the Capitol complex — the Capitol, Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and scores of offices staffed by government and political officials.
“Federal judges have marshals. Obviously, the executive has federal law enforcement. Members of Congress are unprotected,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost. “We’re in a heightened time of political violence,” Frost said, adding that he thought it was “ridiculous” that lawmakers had to use their personal or campaign funds to protect themselves.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., is calling for a “comprehensive” security plan for all House members, including security personnel who would travel with the lawmakers.
She said that in the past she had hesitated to increase security because it puts a barrier between her and constituents. But the recent high-profile killings of political figures, as well as the shooting of her friend, then-Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011, has convinced her that the protection is necessary.
“It’s really to me become a necessity to protect our constituents, to protect us, to protect our staff, our family members,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The risk is too great.”
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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