House passes bill expanding security for SCOTUS families
The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that would provide the family of Supreme Court justices with expanded security protections, sending the legislation to President Biden's desk.
The final vote came in at 396 to 27, with only Democrats objecting. Per The Washington Post, many of those objections were over the legislation's lack of protections for lower-court judges and their families. The House had also initially explored and passed a broader bill that offered protections to Supreme Court staff like judicial clerks if the court marshal believed it necessary, The Hill notes.
House passage comes over a month after the Senate unanimously approved the bill, a vote that arrived in the wake of a leaked draft opinion revealing the high court poised to overturn federal abortion rights under Roe v. Wade.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the lower chamber voted on the Senate bill because it's "the only thing that can pass, frankly, and we want to get it done." In the interim, Republicans had accused Democrats of holding up the security bill, while Democrats said they were holding out for broader protections.
Final approval of the legislation comes not long after an armed man was arrested outside of Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home and later charged with attempted murder.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.
-
Nasa’s new dark matter mapUnder the Radar High-resolution images may help scientists understand the ‘gravitational scaffolding into which everything else falls and is built into galaxies’
-
Is the US about to lose its measles elimination status?Today's Big Question Cases are skyrocketing
-
‘No one is exempt from responsibility, and especially not elite sport circuits’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
EU and India clinch trade pact amid US tariff warSpeed Read The agreement will slash tariffs on most goods over the next decade
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
