For decades, Supreme Court justices appeared before Congress each year to answer questions from lawmakers about the court’s budget requests.
That tradition ended after 2019, first as Covid shut down in-person hearings and then during a period of tension between the court and Congress.
In 2023, amid questions about justices’ acceptance of free travel, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. declined a request to appear before Congress to discuss whether the nine justices would adopt a new ethics code. He cited “separation of powers concerns.”
But on Tuesday, for the first time in seven years, two sitting justices — Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett — are scheduled to testify at the Capitol about the court’s request for millions of dollars to enhance security at a time when threats against the justices, their families and other federal judges are increasing.
The justices speak in public only rarely and even more infrequently face pointed or hostile questions, as they might from members of Congress. Raising the stakes on Tuesday, the appearance by Justice Kagan, a liberal, and Justice Barrett, a conservative, is taking place two weeks after the court completed a blockbuster term, issuing controversial decisions that might prompt questions from lawmakers.
The justices, for instance, affirmed Congress’s taxing power in a 6-to-3 decision blocking President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every major U.S. trading partner. They also significantly weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for Republicans throughout the South to redraw congressional maps.
When justices last appeared before Congress in 2019 to testify about their budget, the discussion was wide-ranging. They were asked about their views on the possibility of televising the Supreme Court’s oral arguments and whether the court would draft an ethics code.
Tuesday’s sessions before House and Senate subcommittees are officially set for Justices Kagan and Barrett to answer questions about the court’s $228 million request for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. The proposal includes funding to expand the court’s police force, which is responsible for round-the-clock security at the justices’ homes and for providing security when the justices travel outside the Washington area.
The court’s request also includes increased funding to hire additional engineers and developers to protect the work of the justices from cyberattacks and millions of dollars for a regional command post for officers responsible for protecting the justices’ homes.
Budget documents show an increase of $6.5 million to design a new facility that could result in visitors at the court being screened outside the building, a setup similar to that adopted at the Capitol with the opening of a visitor’s center in 2008.
Protests initially erupted outside the justices’ homes in 2022 after the leak of a draft of the court’s decision to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion. That year, an armed man tried to assassinate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at his home.
Data from the U.S. Marshals Service, which oversees security for the entire federal judiciary, showed there were more than 600 threats against judges in the 2023 fiscal year, the year after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade.
More recently, the police said in May that Justice Barrett’s Northern Virginia home was the target of a “swatting” attack, in which a false tip reporting gunshots was called in to prompt a law enforcement response.
Lawmakers have approved additional security-related funding for the Supreme Court on a bipartisan basis. But their questions on Tuesday are likely to extend beyond the budget and security concerns.
In response to the court’s decisions in recent years, including its ruling to grant Mr. Trump immunity from prosecution for official acts, some Democrats have called for an overhaul of the court. Political candidates and lawmakers have proposed term limits for the life-tenured justices and adding justices to the bench to restore “balance” on the nine-member court that now has six justices nominated by Republicans.
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