Let lawmakers spend what it takes to keep themselves safe
A more than 500 percent increase in congressional campaign spending on security between 2020 and 2022 can be interpreted two ways. It’s an alarming reflection of a more dangerous environment for public servants in the smash-mouth political era ushered in by President Donald Trump. But heightened spending also means that members of Congress increasingly have access to the resources required to keep them and their offices safe.
This is the result of two policy changes. About two months after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the Federal Election Commission allowed lawmakers to use campaign funds to hire bodyguards to protect themselves and their immediate family outside the home. And one year later, the House made it easier for members to spend more of their annual governmental allowance on office security, raising the individual cap to $10,000.
Per FEC filings, security spending by House and Senate candidates rose from $1.3 million to nearly $8 million between the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms.
Most of the 435 members of the House and 100 senators remain highly vulnerable to isolated acts of political violence. In 2016, the Capitol
Police tracked fewer than 900 threats made against lawmakers. The number jumped to 3,930 in 2017 and kept ticking up through Mr. Trump’s presidency to more than 8,600 in 2020. In 2021, almost 10,000 threats were assessed by the Capitol Police. It’s good that the number of recorded threats dropped to about 7,500 in 2022, but that’s still eight times more than 2016.
Sufficient resources should be available to any member who has reasonable concerns about their safety, whether they’re home or in Washington. It shouldn’t take more assassination attempts, like the ones against then-rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-ariz.) and now-house Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA.), for both parties to rally behind letting members spend flexibly on security, with money from their office budgets or with campaign cash that they raised themselves.