Congress

Members of Congress prepare to breach $1 billion threshold to gird against threats

Published

1 year ago

September 26, 2025

Congress is on track to spend more than $1 billion on the budget for the U.S. Capitol Police for the first time in history, with even fiscal conservatives pushing for more member security investments in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing.

Kirk’s assassination and a broader rise in high-profile political violence has activated lawmakers around a renewed push for additional protections for themselves and their families. It’s scrambling Capitol Hill’s typical ideological factions, with some GOP budget hawks accusing Republican leadership of penny-pinching.

“They can find that money just like that for the war pimps, but for us it’s a little different,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who has scolded Republicans for greenlighting Ukraine aid, said in an interview.

The debate over how much money lawmakers are willing to spend on their own safety will come to a head as appropriators rush to finalize the legislative branch spending bill for fiscal 2026, which funds the operations of Congress and member security.

That the Capitol Police budget could soon clear $1 billion is telling enough, a vivid reflection of just how frightened elected officials are amid the recent surge of deadly political violence. But for many members, this sum still won’t be enough.

Both chambers took steps in the days after the Kirk assassination to move existing money around to provide lawmakers with more options for security, with promises about exploring additional changes. The main push for swift action, however, has come from the House.

Burchett was among several GOP firebrands who, less than a day before a scheduled vote on a stopgap government funding bill last week, descended on Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to demand leadership reopen negotiations on the legislation to incorporate more member security money. The package was already slated to provide a $30 million infusion to fund partnerships between Capitol Police and state and local law enforcement agencies.

He, alongside Reps. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, ultimately backed off their threats to vote against the stopgap measure amid promises leadership would make additional investments in the coming months, including in a standalone member security supplemental.

Some of them were advocating for every House member to be able to obtain round-the-clock security details, which are currently reserved for party leaders and lawmakers deemed to be under imminent threat. Expanding them widely is potentially a multibillion-dollar undertaking.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, the lone Democrat in Johnson’s office for the recent member security talks, wants each lawmaker to have a staffer tasked with protective security duties.

Another deficit hawk, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), has spent more than $150,000 from his own wallet to secure his home. He isn’t blanching at investing even more federal dollars for member security, for lawmakers as well as staff. “This is about more than the vanity-filled members of Congress,” he said.

Schweikert also said he’s still reeling from being confronted in a Costco parking lot by a constituent who claimed to be irate that his granddaughter didn’t win a prize in the annual congressional art competition. He was with his two young children at the time and describes them as still being traumatized by the event.

The need for enhanced security is obvious. But, he added, “I think the more interesting question is, what’s effective?”

That very question is consuming the lead negotiators in member security funding talks, who are weighing ambitious proposals from the rank-and-file against a hesitation to throw more money at a problem that might not be so easily fixed.

“There’s a lot of members asking a lot of things,” Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds the legislative branch, said in an interview. “We’re running the numbers and providing the data to those who are going to be making those decisions.”

The Capitol Police now operates on a $806.5 million budget, which is already up more than 73 percent since 2020.

Valadao said it would be up to members of leadership to determine what dollar amount would constitute “that sweet spot” where “members feel safe.” Asked if he had any idea what that magic number might look like, he could only shrug.

Johnson said in a recent interview that leaders were considering making as much as $25,000 per month available as part of the legislative branch bill that would allow select members to have extra protection “on a case by case basis” if they are deemed to be under “serious threat.”

He didn’t elaborate, however, on who would get to decide which members are under the greatest threat, and using what criteria.

Meanwhile, Reps. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) — the chair and ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, respectively — are working outside of the government funding process to shift around existing resources for member security, underscoring there are programs right now that aren’t being fully utilized.

“What we have done is actually provided a lot of communication to members. Every office has a law enforcement coordinator in their office. We’re providing that information to those offices,” said Steil.

“As these concerns have become heightened, I think a lot more members have been more proactive in making sure that they understand the programs that are already available,” he continued, “as well as the expansion and extension.”

Morelle warned that protecting members against every single violent scenario is likely impossible when many perpetrators “are people who have deep, deep issues.”

“The challenge at the moment is, that there are a lot of things you can’t control, and you certainly can’t anticipate things that, in many ways, are random,” he added.

The reality is, myriad programs are already in place to support lawmakers when they’re away from the uber-secure Capitol complex. Members can, for instance, use their office funds for some security equipment, like cameras for district offices and a ballistic vest.

There’s a discussion about making changes to existing policies governing the use of a $20,000 lifetime cap lawmakers can use to install security systems at their private homes.

Some members want to be able to direct those funds toward making so-called capital improvements at their personal homes, such as perimeter fencing or bulletproof windows. That’s not currently allowed with lawmakers traditionally wary of using taxpayer dollars on construction projects that would increase the value of lawmakers’ residences.

Lawmakers are also permitted to use campaign funds to support security investments during political activities like rallies, including hiring personal security guards. But some members have complained about the suggestion they should be fundraising for their own protection.

“At some point they just build a consensus and let’s go with something,” Burchett suggested to party leaders. “Put it on the floor. Let’s debate it.”

Congress

Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

Published

1 hour ago

October 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.

One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.

“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.

A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.

The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

21 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

21 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.