WASHINGTON – Lawmakers are scrambling to ensure that the U.S. Secret Service has enough money and resources to keep the nation’s presidential candidates safe amid repeated threats of violence. It’s unclear, though, how much they can do with only weeks before the election, or if additional dollars would make an immediate difference.
Days after a gunman was arrested on former President Donald Trump's golf course, the House on Friday overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation 405-0 to require the agency use the same standards when assigning agents to major presidential candidates as they do presidents and vice presidents. The agency has told Congress that it has already boosted Trump's security, but House lawmakers want it put into law.
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The efforts come after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in July, and after Secret Service agents arrested a man with a rifle hiding on the golf course at Trump’s Florida club over the weekend. The suspect in Florida apparently also sought to assassinate the GOP presidential nominee.
“In America, elections are determined at the ballot box, not by an assassin’s bullet,” Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., a chief sponsor of the bill, said in floor debate ahead of the vote. “That these incidents were allowed to occur is a stain on our country."
With the election rapidly approaching and Congress headed out of town before October, lawmakers are rushing to figure out exactly what might help, hoping to assess the agency’s most pressing needs while ensuring that they are doing everything they can in an era where political violence has become more commonplace and every politician is a target.
“We have a responsibility here in Congress to get down to the bottom of this to figure out why these things are happening and what we can do about it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday. “This is not a partisan issue. We have both parties working on it."
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday that “we've got to get the Secret Service into a position where its protectees are shielded in the most maximum way possible.”
Democrats and Republicans have been in talks with the agency this week to find out whether additional resources are needed. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the Democratic chairman of the spending subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service, said Congress wants to make sure that if it is spending new dollars, “it’s going to help the situation between now and the inauguration.”
Murphy said new money could go toward technology like drones, partnerships with other agencies that could provide immediate assistance and overtime pay for agents. It would likely be added to a stopgap spending bill that Congress will consider next week to keep the government running, either in the form of allowing the Secret Service to spend money more quickly or providing them with emergency dollars.
“I’m confident we are going to take care of this one way or the other,” Murphy said.
After the July shooting, House Republicans created a bipartisan task force focused on investigating the security failures of that day, and the panel will hold its first hearing next week. The House voted Friday to expand the committee's mandate to include what happened in Florida, even though the Secret Service successfully apprehended the suspect before anyone was hurt.
In a letter earlier this month, the Secret Service told lawmakers that a funding shortfall was not the reason for lapses in Trump's security when a gunman climbed onto an unsecured roof on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire. But Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said this week that the agency had “immediate needs” and that he’s talking to Congress.
Secret Service officials also told lawmakers behind closed doors that they have already increased Trump’s security to the same level as Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden.
"There are a handful of specialized assets only the commander in chief gets, but the rest of his protection is at the same level,” Spencer Love, a Democratic spokesperson for the House task force, said after the agency briefed members on Wednesday.
In the Senate, Florida Sen. Rick Scott has also introduced a bill mandating similar protection for presidential candidates. Both bills would also require regular reports to Congress on the status of the candidates’ protection. Senate leaders have not yet said whether they will consider the legislation.
In a joint statement after the bill’s passage, Lawler and his co-sponsor, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, urged the Senate to take up the bill and President Joe Biden to sign it. They thanked Biden for expanding Trump’s security but said that “without the passage and implementation of this legislation, this enhanced protection will not be codified into law and is subject to change with time.”
Republicans have argued that an overhaul of the agency, and potentially reallocating agents, should be a higher priority than funding.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican who was himself shot at a baseball practice in 2017, noted this week that the Secret Service has received regular budget increases in recent years.
“It’s not about the money,” Scalise said, but “what they’re doing with the money.”
Rep. Mike Waltz, a Republican on the task force, said he pushed Secret Service officials Wednesday on what new resources they needed and they said they were still evaluating.
“I think it’s irresponsible to just throw money at it when they’re not even sure what exactly they need and how quickly they can get it,” the Florida lawmaker said, adding that he hopes the agency shifts to a more threat-focused approach to protecting officials and candidates.
It's unclear, though, if Republicans would fight a funding boost.
“It’s been made implicitly clear that they’re stretched pretty thin,” said Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, a member of the task force. “I know that there’s some folks who see a $3 billion budget and think that should be enough. But when you look at where all of the bodies have to go, that’s a problem.”