ouse members will get $10,000 a month for personal security after the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, the chamber’s leaders announced.
The effort follows the assassination last week of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.
On Wednesday, House leadership made the decision to double the monthly total currently available to legislators in a pilot program created this summer to increase security for members, POLITICO reported.
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil said that the funds to increase the pilot program amount were previously allocated and have been repurposed to bump it up to $10,000, according to the Washington Examiner.
Several House Republicans discussed their dissatisfaction over the $10,000 monthly amount with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Steil.
The additional security funding comes after Kirk, 31, was shot and killed by an assassin last week at Utah Valley University during a Turning Point USA event. Tyler Robinson, 22, has been arrested as the suspected shooter.
Later, when asked if Republican leadership would add more money for member security to the stopgap directly, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said there were “ongoing conversations.”
“We said that at the beginning of the week — is that we’re working with our members to find out how to properly make sure that everybody has the security they need to be safe,” Scalise said.
New York Democratic Rep. Joe Morelle said that “more needs to be done” to ensure the security of lawmakers and congressional staff, “but this is an important and necessary start.”
Steil said, “The goal is having leg[islative] branch [appropriations], which is engaged right now in a conference, of them identifying the appropriate funding level as we go forward.”
The additional security funding announcement comes after a $32 million injection in funds for a program that has been in existence that lets Congress members request security through partnerships between the Capitol Police and local law enforcement agencies. The $32 million is part of the stopgap spending bill. The expansion of the pilot program is funded from a separate pot of money from the current fiscal year.
“The funding can be authorized, we need to make sure that that money is in the right buckets,” Steil said.
Hellbound and Down 