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The Supreme Court wants a budget increase to $210 million for fiscal year 2027, in part due to the court’s desire to bulk up its security and protect justices. Some Democrats, however, think that’s too rich.
With the court’s security budget having nearly doubled in five years — and officials pushing to more than double the size of the Supreme Court Police force to over 400 officers — Congress is being asked to keep the cash spigot open. The latest requests include 54 more officers for justices’ personal details, a new off-site command post, a dozen cybersecurity staffers, and signing bonuses of up to $60,000 to lure recruits away from competing federal agencies, POLITICO reported on Sunday.
But Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, isn’t writing blank checks. “We provide money for the Supreme Court,” the Connecticut Democrat fumed in April. “They’ve never come up and tell us what they’re doing with the money that we appropriate.”
Justice Elena Kagan told DeLauro that justices were willing to testify before Congress on the issue, and a hearing was scheduled — but then it was mysteriously postponed, with no new date announced.
It’s a remarkable stance given what’s actually happening to these justices. The threat environment has turned genuinely terrifying — and it’s conservative justices whom Democrats have spent years vilifying who are squarely in the crosshairs.
In 2020, as the court heard arguments on a major abortion case, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) attacked the conservative justices, threatening, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
In June 2022, after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked, a man showed up outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home at 1 a.m. with a Glock, 37 rounds of ammunition, zip ties, pepper spray, and lock-picking sets. He told 911 he planned to kill the justice and then himself. A year later, an Alaska man fired off nearly 500 threats to six justices, vowing to lynch, decapitate, and assassinate conservatives to “change the ideological balance on the court.” Last month, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was swatted at her Virginia home — a potentially deadly false report designed to bring armed police swarming to her door.
Justice Clarence Thomas says he can no longer attend Nebraska football games or take his law clerks to Gettysburg. Barrett was handed a bulletproof vest on her way home from work — and had to explain it to her teenage son.
When Congress had a chance to act, 27 House Democrats voted against a bill to extend security protections to the justices’ families. Every single “no” vote came from the Left. Republicans voted unanimously in favor.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) complained that Congress moves faster to protect judges than to pass gun control. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) grandstanded about El Paso. New Jersey Democrats demanded the bill be broadened or they’d tank it. Meanwhile, Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin had recently been hauled off his front lawn.
Then in 2023, Senate Democrats went further — threatening to withhold $10 million from the court’s budget unless justices adopted a Democrat-approved ethics code. Fifteen senators, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), signed on to the scheme. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), controlling the relevant subcommittee, said he was looking “at all the options.”
The court’s liberals, notably, don’t appear to face the same danger. As one lawyer who speaks regularly with the justices put it: “The conservative justices lead cloistered lives. It’s really a shame. I don’t think the liberal justices suffer the same threats in the sense that their lives are in danger.”
Democrats spent years targeting these justices politically. Now they’re demanding receipts before signing off on keeping them alive.
