Two Supreme Court justices brought the judiciary's security crisis directly to Congress on Tuesday, warning lawmakers that current protection falls dangerously short and asking for expanded funding to keep the bench safe.
Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Amy Coney Barrett testified before House appropriations lawmakers about the court's budget request, centering their remarks on the escalating threats facing judges and the physical danger that now shadows their work.
Each justice currently receives between four and eight security personnel, Barrett explained. During periods of heightened threat, that number swells, though both justices indicated the judiciary needs permanent expansion of its protection detail. "We'd like to increase that over time when we get to our full staffing needs," Kagan said.
The appearance marked a rare moment on Capitol Hill. The last time a sitting justice testified to Congress was 2019, making Tuesday's hearing a striking statement about how much has changed.
Barrett offered a window into how real this danger has become. After the Dobbs decision leaked in 2022, her security team handed her a bulletproof vest to take home. She described the jarring moment her 12-year-old son found it sitting on her bedroom table and asked why she had it. More recently, she endured a swatting incident when county police responded to a false report of gunshots at her residence. She credited her Supreme Court security detail with preventing officers from entering her home.
Democratic appropriations leaders seized the moment to demand accountability beyond security funding. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member of the House appropriations committee, pressed the justices on ethics and transparency, specifically calling out the court's voluntary disclosure rules as insufficient.
Her criticism pointed directly at Justice Clarence Thomas, who faced scrutiny last year for accepting luxury travel and private jet flights from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow without reporting them on his financial disclosures. The court's formal ethics code, adopted in 2023, relies entirely on voluntary reporting. "Woefully insufficient" was DeLauro's verdict.
"When a decision is handed down, it is the result of rigorous constitutional analysis, not private parochial interests," DeLauro said, emphasizing the need for binding, enforceable standards and increased financial disclosure requirements.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee, anchored the security discussion in the current climate. With the nation fractured along ideological lines and violent rhetoric targeting judges commonplace, Congress bears a responsibility to fund judicial safety properly, he said. At the same time, lawmakers must balance that obligation against protecting judicial independence and ensuring adequate resources for public defense.
The leak of the Dobbs decision continues to loom over the court's operations. Both Kagan and Barrett said they still do not know who disclosed it. Kagan noted that uncertainty corrodes the court's ability to function. "If you think that those views are going to appear on the front page of the newspaper, you pull back," she said. "You don't have the kinds of conversations that I think the court really depends on to do great work."
Author James Rodriguez: "When justices have to explain bulletproof vests to their children and worry about swatting attacks, something fundamental has broken in how Americans treat their courts."
Comments