{"id":13431,"date":"2025-09-19T00:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-approves-new-path-for-member-security-funding\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T00:31:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:31:39","slug":"senate-approves-new-path-for-member-security-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-approves-new-path-for-member-security-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate approves new path for member security funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Senate greenlit a rules change Thursday night to allow Senators to use official office funds for personal security measures \u2014 a move driven by concerns about lawmaker security in the wake of last week&#8217;s assassination of Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader John Thune brought the proposal to the floor and it was approved by unanimous consent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery senator will now have additional flexibility to address the security concerns they face as public officials,&#8221; said Thune.<\/p>\n<p>He cited the additional $30 million for state and local law enforcement partnerships with Capitol Police that House Republicans included in their stopgap spending bill slated for a vote Friday in the House.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s ongoing bipartisan work to address member security in the legislative branch appropriations bill, which I hope the House and Senate will complete work on in the very near future,\u201d Thune continued.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate-passed legislative branch spending bill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/09\/11\/senate-program-for-in-state-lawmaker-security-could-hitch-a-ride-on-spending-stopgap-00559263\" target=\"_blank\">would include funding<\/a> for a pilot program for increased security for lawmakers in their home states and additional security investments are possible as the bill moves through a bipartisan and bicameral negotiation process in the wake of the Kirk assassination.<\/p>\n<p>Thune also said that he\u2019s working with the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms to explore additional options for security for senators.<\/p>\n<p>This move was previewed earlier this week by Senate Rules Committee Chair Mitch McConnell, who told his GOP colleagues at a lunch meeting that he heard their concerns and interest in more flexibility on security expenses and outlined the path ahead for the rules change.<\/p>\n<p>The office accounts, which also fund staff salaries and office supplies, can now be used to cover the &#8220;cost of necessary security enhancements and services&#8221; provided to senators, according to language circulated by the Rules Committee. The panel is also expected to &#8220;promulgate regulations&#8221; and provide senators with guidelines for using their office accounts for this new type of expense.<\/p>\n<p><i>Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate greenlit a rules change Thursday night to allow Senators to use official office funds for personal security measures \u2014 a move driven by concerns about lawmaker security in the wake of last week&#8217;s assassination of Charlie Kirk. Senate Majority Leader John Thune brought the proposal to the floor and it was approved by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}