Two justices of the United States Supreme Court appeared before lawmakers to make the case for a bigger budget, in a rare public accounting of how the court spends public money. According to the account, Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett gave opening statements before a House Appropriations subcommittee to present the court's request for the 2027 fiscal year, the first time justices have testified before the committee in around seven years.
The request itself was modest in headline terms but pointed in its purpose. According to the account, the court is seeking an additional 14 million dollars, a 7% increase, for salaries and expenses in the coming fiscal year. Over the last five fiscal years, the court's funding needs have grown on average about 15% a year, and aside from routine inflation that growth has been almost entirely driven by the cost of security.
The reason for the emphasis on protection was set out plainly. According to Justice Kagan, threats against the justices have risen by 38% this year, and much of the money the court is asking for would go toward building out the Supreme Court's own police force, adding cyber defenses and protecting the justices at their homes, where there have been a number of attacks in recent years.
According to the account, the concrete plans behind the request are relatively specific. The court is looking to expand its own police force by around 25 new officers, to provide up to six individual agents for each justice, and to add roughly a dozen agents dedicated to cybersecurity to help protect the court's decisions and internal deliberations, changes that lawmakers from both parties are expected to approve. The scale of the wider problem was underlined by figures from the Marshals Service, which recorded 564 threats against judges across the country last year.
One change in particular has driven much of the rising bill. According to the account, the majority of last year's funding increase went to shifting responsibility for the residential security of the justices from the marshals service to the Supreme Court Police Department, a move that expanded the force's duties and, with them, its costs, at a time of heightened concern for the safety of judges.
The concern was made vivid by attacks aimed at individual members of the court. According to the account, Justice Barrett was the target of a swatting incident at her home only last month, when a wave of police cars descended on the property and her teenage son stepped out into it, while in 2022 a man travelled to Justice Kavanaugh's home in an attempt to assassinate him. Justice Kagan recounted police responding to a false report of gunshots at her own home, where officers from the court's own force were able to intervene and explain to local police that it was a false alarm before they tried to enter.
The justices were at pains to place the numbers in proportion. According to the account, the court's operating budget is relatively small, representing about 2% of the judiciary branch's total funding and roughly one-tenth of 1% of the entire federal budget. That money covers the everyday running of the court, including library and research services, case management, visitor services, information technology, facilities and security.
The growth in spending was described as the result of a long and deliberate build-up rather than a sudden demand. According to the account, security at the court looked very different when Justice Kagan joined in 2010, with officers focused largely on the building itself. The expansion began in earnest around 2017, associate justices were given personal details that proved too small, and after a leak from the court in the Dobbs case the residential security and threat assessment work was widened further, while the growth of online attacks prompted requests for more cybersecurity.
The court also drew a direct comparison with the body that protects lawmakers themselves. According to the account, the Supreme Court's police department, though far smaller in scale, is modeled on the Capitol Police, with matching pay tables and similar organizational structures, and the two forces work closely together on threats around the Capitol campus and beyond. The justices framed the overall request as a measured, incremental response to evolving security challenges, telling lawmakers they took their responsibility as stewards of public money seriously.