Supreme Court justices request increased security funding from Congress
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Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
At a Tuesday Senate budget hearing in Washington, Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett asked Congress to approve a fiscal 2027 Supreme Court budget of $228.4 million, a nearly 10% increase that included about $14 million for security and cybersecurity. Barrett described intensified threats around the May 2022 leak of a draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the Court’s June 2022 decision in that case, which overturned Roe v. Wade; she said her security detail once sent her home with a bulletproof vest. The request comes after Congress enacted the Supreme Court Police Parity Act in 2022, which authorized 24-hour protection for justices’ immediate families. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, a Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, publicly questioned the request on Fox News and said he would review it; the accounts provided do not report that Congress has approved the money.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Slate and Newsmax both cover the justices’ request as a security-money story, but they build almost opposite frames around it. Slate says Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett sought “a $14 million budget increase for security measures,” and then pivots to court ethics, arguing Congress should create “a robust inspection office” and later naming a proposed “Office of Ethics Counsel” and “Office of Investigative Counsel.” Newsmax gives the budget frame differently: “a nearly 10% increase in the court’s budget to $228.4 million for fiscal 2027,” with much of it for “security and cybersecurity.” Slate does not give the $228.4 million total, fiscal year, or cybersecurity detail; Newsmax does not mention the $14 million figure or any ethics-office proposal. The biggest omission in Newsmax is the ethics context that dominates Slate: the Dobbs leak investigation by Marshal Gail Curley, the Chertoff Group’s more than $1 million in prior private security work for the court, Clarence Thomas’ gifts from Harlan Crow, and Kagan and Barrett’s split over an enforceable ethics code. The biggest omission in Slate is Sen. John Kennedy’s pushback, which is Newsmax’s lead: “there’s not a money fairy,” “Their favorite kind of spending is more,” and the claim that the justices “already have 24-hour security.” The outlets also choose very different language for the same request. Slate says “Congress should heed Kagan and Barrett’s request” because “the threats against the justices and their families are real.” Newsmax foregrounds Kennedy saying, “I’m sorry they feel insecure,” while stressing that the money “comes out of people’s pockets, or we have to borrow it.” On threat detail, Slate lists the attempted assassination of Brett Kavanaugh, protests at justices’ homes, an Alaska man’s alleged graphic threats, and Barrett being swatted; Newsmax instead uses Barrett’s bulletproof-vest anecdote involving her 12-year-old son. Neither piece answers the practical budget question: what exactly the new money would buy, how much would go to physical security versus cybersecurity, and what current protections are judged insufficient.
Bottom line
Slate turns a $14 million security request into an ethics-and-secrecy argument, while Newsmax turns a nearly 10% increase to $228.4 million into a spending-restraint story led by Kennedy’s “not a money fairy” line. Neither explains the actual spending breakdown behind the request.
The Left View
Slate frames the security request as legitimate but incomplete. Its central argument is that Congress should pair funding with stronger Supreme Court ethics oversight, such as an inspector-general-like function or the proposed Office of Ethics Counsel and Office of Investigative Counsel, because the Court currently handles gifts, recusals, leak inquiries, and complaints largely through internal or ad hoc mechanisms. Slate links safety to institutional trust, arguing that secrecy and unresolved ethics controversies can deepen public anger and make the Court less secure over time. It contrasts Kagan’s relative openness to an enforceable ethics code with Barrett’s description of such reforms as “complex,” “tricky,” and filled with “awkwardness,” presenting that difference as revealing about the Court’s internal resistance to external accountability.
The Right View
Newsmax frames the story through Kennedy’s skepticism about federal spending. It highlights his argument that the justices’ request must be weighed against taxpayer costs, quoting him as saying “there’s not a money fairy” and that “their favorite kind of spending is more.” The article also emphasizes Kennedy’s view that the justices already receive unusually strong protection, including 24-hour security and travel details, while noting Barrett’s personal account of the threat environment. Its overall framing is less about court ethics and more about whether an already protected institution has justified another spending increase.
Our Take (balanced)
The strongest left-side argument is that the Court’s security needs cannot be separated from its legitimacy problem: Slate’s best evidence is that the Court has relied on limited internal structures and outside contractors for sensitive matters while facing recurring ethics questions that no independent body is clearly empowered to resolve. The strongest right-side argument is that real threats do not automatically settle the budget question: Kennedy’s best evidence is that the requested increase is substantial and comes on top of protection arrangements that are already unusually extensive. The central unresolved tension is whether congressional scrutiny should treat the request mainly as a security necessity for a threatened branch of government or as leverage in a broader accountability debate over an institution that asks for public money while maintaining exceptional internal secrecy.
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