Members of Congress are beginning to believe that political assassinations are a normal part of public life in America.
“This is not the first and it won’t be the last bit of political violence we see,” Republican Rep. Andy Harris told NOTUS less than a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at a crowded university event.
“It’s something we’re going to have to live with,” he said.
Harris’ sentiment — that murder has become a regular element of the American political system — was pervasive on Capitol Hill in the day after Kirk’s gruesome, public death.
Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said he believes that members of Congress are all “targets” now. Rep. Joe Morelle — the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee — told NOTUS “there’s a new reality that is setting in.” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the trend of violence an “uncorking.”
“I had to have a talk with my 17-year-old son last night, who asked me not to run again because he’s worried his dad’s going to get killed,” Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican from Florida, told NOTUS.
“And I can’t, I can’t tell him that that is a crazy perspective,” he said.
None of the dozens of lawmakers NOTUS talked to in either party believes that political violence should be an ordinary part of governing. It’s just that they cannot shake the dark impression that violence against political figures is permanent. That Kirk’s murder is the latest abominable example in an inevitable pattern of brutality. That the fallout, the sorrow, fear, outrage and amnesia, is routine.
With this sense that harrowing attacks are here to stay, lawmakers have also started shifting their idea of how to respond. After Kirk’s death, the conversations around Capitol Hill revolved more around how to keep lawmakers safe from violence and less around how to prevent that violence in the first place.
Just months ago, after an assassin killed Minnesota state Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Republicans and Democrats chiefly blamed inflammatory political rhetoric. But more than ever, lawmakers spent Thursday discussing how they could protect themselves from being the next victim, whether that be allocating more funds for security or restricting constituents from accessing representatives at events like town halls.
Just as Congress has not found a legislative solution to school shootings in the 13 years after Sandy Hook, it does not have a legislative answer to the rise in political violence.
After all, short of any bipartisan agreement on the root causes of violence, it has become hard for lawmakers to imagine much substantive bipartisan policy outcomes. Where many Democrats point to the public’s near-ubiquitous access to guns as an explanation, Republicans often suggest that more firearms would lead to better protection.
“It’s not that complicated,” Norman said. “It’s not taking our guns away. We’ve got Second Amendment rights.”
In July, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a pilot program to allow lawmakers access to a $20,000 security allowance until Sept. 30. The monitoring and maintenance allotment was increased to $5,000 for personal security through the pilot program.
Lawmakers are privately discussing extending that program or designating new funding through the appropriation process for lawmakers to be able to receive additional security, something Morelle has floated he supports. Still, some lawmakers dismissed that more funds could actually help prevent cases of violence against them in the first place.
Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole told reporters Thursday that he is “agnostic” to allocating more money to member safety, arguing that enough funding doesn’t exist for every lawmaker to have the same security detail as top congressional leaders. Johnson told reporters that such an investment in congressional security would cost “billions of dollars.”
Cole said the funding that already exists often goes toward lawmakers’ home security equipment, like cameras.
But, Cole said, “All the camera would do is help them get the guy who murdered me.”
Others in Congress are more bullish on the need for safety reinforcements. As NOTUS has reported, many Democrats have upped their personal spending on security and have taken out liability insurance. Axios reported that in 2021, Sen. Raphael Warnock spent over $600,000 on personal security, while Sen. Ted Cruz spent more than $350,000.
But lawmakers are also all too aware that the Secret Service had a $3.1 billion budget in fiscal year 2024 — a year when then-presidential candidate Trump was shot in the ear and nearly killed during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“When people want to do bad things to you, it’s really difficult,” Republican Rep. Kevin Hern said. “We saw the president with his detail. It’s just there are some really terrible people in the world.”
“If we don’t have a safe nation, we have no nation,” he added.
The recent images of assassins shooting Trump in Pennsylvania and Kirk in Utah at large, open-air venues have also led lawmakers to reexamine how they should approach their own public events.
“One of the things that worries me a lot is not just our own individual safety, but the safety of the people around us,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández told NOTUS. “Do we worry about having events, and are we putting other people who come to meet with us at risk?”
Some lawmakers are so concerned with the safety risks of town halls and other events that they expect they will stop altogether, at least for the time being. Ocasio-Cortez announced Thursday she was planning to reschedule a North Carolina rally. Rep. Nancy Mace, who is running for governor in South Carolina, is canceling outdoor and public events indefinitely.
“Outdoor events probably are going to be a lot fewer in numbers for members of Congress,” House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer told reporters.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson told NOTUS, however, that he has not put out “any kind of guidance” on how candidates should practically respond to Kirk’s murder, but said he believes the inflammatory rhetoric common on the campaign trail should tone down.
“I mean, I have beliefs,” Hudson told NOTUS. “My faith instructs me that you’ve got to stand for truth, but you it do with gentleness, humbleness and love for everyone.”
Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican member who recently hosted a highly publicized, raucous town hall in Lincoln, Nebraska, said that shutting down town halls isn’t the path forward to promote a healthy civic discourse. He explained that he’s had a good experience coordinating his security with the sergeant-at-arms and Capitol Police.
“I want to be positive,” Flood said, after NOTUS told him he sounded more upbeat about the status of member safety than any of his colleagues.
“You can’t do your job and live in fear,” he added. “You know?”