Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday that Hill officials were expediting a planned review of member security following the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Republican and Democratic House leaders had previously announced a pilot program to increase money available for security for members and their families, which they had planned to evaluate at the end of this month.
But following Kirk’s violent killing at a public event in Utah on Wednesday, Johnson said there’s new clamoring for enhanced protection from both Republicans and Democrats. He said roughly 20 lawmakers had expressed interest in using extra security funding before Kirk’s death, but more members approached him in the immediate aftermath.
“We’re in a deliberate review process right now to determine what measures are appropriate, how much we could allocate for that,” Johnson told reporters.
“We’ve got to protect people who run for public office or no one will, and that’s heavy on our hearts and minds as we also work through the trauma of what happened yesterday,” he added.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police in a statement Thursday said that while “we cannot provide specific details about our increased security posture” out of safety concerns, “we continue to work with our federal, state and local partners to carry out our critical mission.”
The spokesperson also acknowledged the Capitol Police “have been operating in a heightened threat environment for a long time.”
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
