Last month, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the target of an attempted “swatting” incident – a call falsely reporting the sound of gunshots at her Virginia home. Although swatting incidents are intended to provoke a heavy police response, and therefore can often be dangerous, police audio indicated that Fairfax County police officers determined that the address had “24-hour security coverage” and were able to quickly confirm with the security detail at the house that it was a swatting call.
The tight security provided to Barrett and her colleagues stands in sharp contrast to the protection provided to the justices in years past. As Jay Willis recounted after the death of Justice David Souter last year, Souter did not attend the 2005 ceremony marking the arrival of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s casket at the Supreme Court because no one could get in touch with him; he did not have a cellphone or an answering machine at his New Hampshire home – and presumably also did not have any security detail at all that could relay the news to him.
Security around the Supreme Court and the justices has increased markedly in recent years, particularly in the wake of the 2022 leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which would overturn the constitutional right to an abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade. The news of the leak led to protests at the court and at the residences of the courts’ conservative justices, as well as an attempt to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home.
This beefed-up security presence has led to a significant expansion of both the Supreme Court’s workforce and its budget. The Supreme Court’s budget request for fiscal year 2027 seeks more than $207 million in “discretionary salary and expenses” (that is, not related to salary and expenses for the justices, whose salaries the Constitution protects from reductions) for 821 full-time employees. That’s an increase of more than $131 million, and 333 full-time employees, from fiscal year 2016.
There is no way to know exactly how many of the 488 “discretionary” full-time employees in FY2016 were members of the Supreme Court Police. But the website for the Supreme Court Police Department currently indicates that the department has “allocated staffing for 233 officers” (up from 189 just over three years ago and reportedly around 125 in 2018). And a review of the court’s budget documents over the past decade reveals a slow uptick in funding and staffing immediately after the Dobbs leak, followed by a dramatic increase recently as responsibility for protecting the justices and the court shifts from the U.S. Marshals Service, which had initially been tasked with security for the justices (in all likelihood because the Supreme Court Police then lacked the resources to provide round-the-clock security).
Year-by-year
Even before the Dobbs leak, the court had begun to pay more attention to security issues. The court’s funding for FY2019 included an increase of $2.2 million for “27 new positions for security requirements.” In testimony at a 2019 hearing held by the House Committee on Appropriations to discuss the court’s budget, Justice Elena Kagan also indicated that Chief Justice John Roberts had hired security consultants and that the court planned to complete a review of its security before hiring more security staff.
In 2020, the court again sought to “enhance” its “security programs,” adding $2.9 million and two more full-time employees to its budget summary for FY2021.
During FY2022, after the Dobbs leak, the court received a supplemental appropriation of $9.1 million to address increased security costs. The Marshals Service also received an additional $10.3 million to cover the costs of providing around-the-clock protection for the justices.
Budget increases related to security continued in the years that followed.
- In FY2023, the Supreme Court sought nearly $10 million for “security upgrades” at the court, including $2 million for security cameras and to upgrade the police department’s radios. The court also asked for $1.8 million to “fund an educational assistance program to provide student loan repayment and tuition assistance benefits to Court police officers and other employees.”
- In FY2024, the Supreme Court’s budget for discretionary salaries and expenses reached $129,323,000, with 540 employees. The FY2024 budget included a variety of line items relating to security, including $5.9 million for “expansion of protective activities” for the justices and $4 million “for the annualization of police pay adjustments and protective activities that were funded by the supplemental appropriation provided in FY2022,” as well as an additional $6.5 million for the Supreme Court’s Buildings and Grounds budget “for physical security improvements to reinforce the Supreme Court building.”
- Beginning in FY2025, the budget for security-related expenses began to increase even more steadily, as the Supreme Court Police prepared to assume responsibility for protecting the justices’ homes. The court’s 2025 budget request asked for an increase of $19.4 million for this transition, which included adding 33 new police officers at a cost of $5.8 million.
- In November 2025, the court also received a supplemental appropriation of $28 million for security as part of a deal to end the government shutdown.
- The biggest increase yet – once again as part of the transition from the U.S. Marshals Service to the Supreme Court Police – came with the FY2026 budget, in which the court sought and received $163.1 million for discretionary salaries and expenses, for an estimated total of 760 FTEs. That included an increase of $26.8 million and a whopping 123 additional FTEs for the Supreme Court Police for security for the justices’ homes and families and to expand the police department’s capacity to protect them elsewhere. The budget also included an additional $4.5 million to fund 10 new FTEs to “expand protective intelligence for the justices” and “replace and expand building security systems.”
- The court’s FY2027 budget would continue this growth. It seeks more than $207 million for discretionary salaries and expenses for a total of 821 FTEs. In particular, it seeks $14 million for 84 additional “personal protection and building security officers,” explaining that the budget “continues expansion of the Court’s dignitary protection unit by funding an additional six agents per Justice (54 FTEs) and an administrative support position. It will also permit additional travel in support of the Justices’ security when outside of the National Capitol Region.” Additionally, the budget seeks $2 million to fund an “off-site residential security office,” which it describes as “an additional command post necessary to coordinate assignments and protection coverage for the Court’s residential security program.” Such a post, the budget document explains, “will increase hiring and retention rates of Supreme Court police officers, improve reaction time in case of emergency, and produce an overall less costly and more efficient security program.”
Moving forward
Although members of Congress are often deeply divided these days on the substance of the Supreme Court’s decisions, the need to fund appropriate security for the justices themselves appears to be a bipartisan issue. In 2022, for example, Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, co-authored the legislation to provide additional funding for the Supreme Court and the Marshals Service. In a letter urging House leaders to pass the bill quickly, they wrote that “[t]here should be no question whether Congress will … provide the resources necessary to protect the Supreme Court.”
As last month’s swatting incident demonstrates, the threats to the justices, and the need for additional funding to protect them, show no signs of abating. In years to come, the court thus seems likely to continue to receive whatever funds for security it requests, creating the prospect of an even larger Supreme Court workforce and budget. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court Police Department itself appears focused on hiring officers to fill the positions that have already been funded – to protect the justices at home, at the court, and when they travel. Suggesting that the task of filling those roles may be a tough one, the court is offering “recruitment incentives” of up to $60,000 for some positions.
