House Passes Bill Expanding Security For Supreme Court Justices

On Tuesday, the House passed a bill on Tuesday that would provide security protections to family members of Supreme Court justices. The bill already passed the Senate unanimously and is now being sent to President Biden for final approval.

The legislation, titled the Supreme Court Police Parity Act, passed the House in a 396-27 vote, with only Democrats voting against the additional protection for Supreme Court justices – despite an assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh just one week ago.

As noted by The Hill, the Democrats who opposed the bill were Reps. Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Jesús García (Ill.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Steven Horsford (Nevada), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Brenda Lawrence (Mich.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Tom Malinowski (N.J.), Marie Newman (Ill.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Bill Pascrell (N.J.), Donald Payne (N.J.), Ed Perlmutter (Colo.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.), Albio Sires (N.J.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Norma Torres (Calif.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Maxine Waters (Calif.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).

The bill took more than a month to pass in the House after the Senate unanimously approved the legislation in early May. During that time, Supreme Court justices faced multiple threats, including an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh which occurred last week when a man armed with a pistol and other weapons was arrested outside the justice’s home and was charged with “Attempts to kidnap or murder, or threatens to assault, kidnap or murder a United States Judge, to wit: a current Justice of the United States Supreme Court.”

The man, Nicholas John Roske, planned on killing Kavanaugh and then committing suicide, according to FBI special agent Ian Montijo.

“Roske then told the detective that he was upset about the leak of a recent Supreme Court draft decision regarding the right to abortion as well as the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas,” Montijo wrote in the criminal complaint. “Roske indicated that the Justice that he intended to kill would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws.”

“Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice after finding the Justice’s Montgomery County address on the Internet. Roske further indicated that he had purchased the Glock pistol and the other items for the purpose of breaking into the Justice’s residence and killing the Justice as well as himself,” Montijo added.