Congress

Senate program for in-state lawmaker security could hitch a ride on spending stopgap

Published

1 year ago

September 12, 2025

Elected officials are on edge and clamoring for enhanced safety measures for themselves and their families after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. But even before Kirk’s death, Senate appropriators green-lit funding to continue a pilot program for increased security for lawmakers at home, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee said Thursday.

“The bill that we passed would provide for a pilot program,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Thursday.

The funding for the pilot program flows through the Senate Sergeant at Arms accounts, which fund Senate-specific security programs separate from the Capitol Police, sparing lawmakers’ office accounts from the burden of large security costs.

The Sergeant at Arms was given an allocation in the legislative branch appropriators bill the Senate approved in July, but as with many security related accounts, itemized details are not made public.

Collins cautioned the measure is now headed to bicameral negotiations, where the funding levels could change and entire policies could get stripped. The inclusion of this money to begin with, however, reflects the extent to which the specter of political violence has become a bleak reality for elected officials.

For years, lawmakers have raised concerns that they are unprotected when they are outside the highly securitized Capitol campus in Washington, even when conducting official duties back home. Their fears became more pronounced after the shooting of state legislators in Minnesota in June, and have metastasized following the targeted killing of Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, at an event on a Utah college campus Wednesday.

But members of both parties and chambers signaled Thursday there’s an appetite for spending money on more security options for lawmakers.

“I think there would be agreement on doing whatever needs to get done for members’ security,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a brief interview Thursday morning.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch subcommittee, said Thursday that the pilot program has already been operating on a small scale for “several members” with “higher threat levels” participating so far. The hope is that Congress will approve a final version of the Senate-passed legislative branch bill that includes the ability to continue the pilot program through the end of the next fiscal year.

Mullin said appropriators are hoping to soon learn “the actual cost” of providing senators with in-state security, plus get information about the necessary size of a member’s security detail and how visible each detail would have to be.

Noting he has received an uptick in questions from concerned colleagues and spouses about funding for enhanced security in the wake of Kirk’s death, Mullins was candid.

“Ultimately, every member needs to be protected,” he told reporters. “Unfortunately, most people think that we have security on us already. Truth is, we don’t.”

And, he added: “It takes money.”

The cost of outfitting every lawmaker in the House and Senate with an around-the-clock Capitol Police detail — a privilege typically only afforded to members of congressional leadership — would likely run into the multi-billions of dollars. It is a price Congress isn’t likely to be willing to pay. Many rank and file lawmakers outside the line of presidential succession also aren’t interested in giving up their freedom to that degree.

In addition to funding for the Sergeant at Arms pilot program, the Senate-passed legislative branch bill provides $25 million for the Capitol Police’s mutual aid reimbursement program, which reimburses state and local law enforcement for protective detail coverage for lawmakers when they are in their home states and districts.

In May, outgoing Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger touted over 100 memorandumsof agreement for mutual aid partnerships with state and local police around the country. But according to Capitol Police this week, there was a significant surge in mutual aid agreements finalized in the wake of the Minnesota shootings that killed a state representative and her husband; wounded a state senator and his wife; and revealed a list of other elected officials who might have also been targets.

The Senate’s pilot program seems aligned with an updated security framework the House released in the wake of the Minnesota attacks.

The House, on a short term basis, doubled funding for residential security to $20,000 per member to “allow for a more comprehensive suite of security equipment to be installed at their residences,” according to a memo distributed to lawmakers.

These funds flowed through an ongoing House Sergeant-at-Arms initiative for securitizing lawmakers’ homes, which saved members’ office accounts from the expense.

Congress

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

Published

8 hours 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

1 day 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

1 day 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.