Sep 18, 2024 - Politics & Policy

Secret Service funding scores Senate boosters

This is the Secret Service — Law enforcement personnel investigate the area where the Secret Service discovered a man suspected in the attempted assassination of former President Trump at the Trump International Golf Club on Sept. 17 in West Palm Beach, Fla. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

One space with bipartisan optimism after Wednesday's failed House vote on the government spending stopgap is Secret Service funding.

Why it matters: Both party leaders in the Senate — Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — are open to including more money for the agency in light of the demands for more protection to be granted to former President Trump.

Republicans are more comfortable with what's called an "anomaly" in the stopgap measure.

This would allow the Secret Service to access up to 100% of its current $1.3 billion protection budget over the spending stopgap period — likely a couple of months, according to a source close to the negotiations.
That's hundreds of millions of dollars more than the agency would be able to use otherwise and would get them well through the election.

Some Democrats want to give the agency extra cash through a separate supplemental package rather than messing with the spending stopgap.

But that opens them up to other agencies asking for their own plus-ups.

The bottom line: Senate Democrats hope "Plan B" on the spending stopgap consists of a bipartisan path forward, with all four congressional leaders hashing out a plan to get a three-month stopgap measure through both chambers by the end of next week.

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Secret Service funding scores Senate boosters

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