Congress approves $2.1 billion Capitol security bill

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Senate unanimously passed a bill Thursday that provides a little over $2 billion in funding to beef up security at the U.S. Capitol complex, and the House quickly approved it soon after.

The final Senate vote tally was 98-0. Only Senators Roger Marshall and Mike Rounds, Republicans from Kansas and South Dakota, respectively, did not vote.

Thursday’s vote comes on the heels of a House-passed bill in May to greenlight $1.9 billion for Capitol security. The $2.1 billion Senate bill, a substitute to the House bill offered by Senators Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, received a quick vote in the House later Thursday afternoon, passing in that chamber by a 416-11 margin.  

President Joe Biden signed the bill into law Friday.

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro said from the chamber floor Thursday the Capitol Police officers and National Guard members who protected lawmakers and the Capitol building deserved the support.

“The brave men and women of our Capitol Police protected us and since that fateful day they have continued to work day in and day out with only the barest minimum of support,” the Connecticut Democrat said. “They have soldiered on with physical, mental and emotional trauma and have sacrificed their own needs and those of their families for the safety and security of our democracy. We need to respect their service.”

The vote also comes just weeks before Capitol Police was expected to run out of funding — which could have forced officers to work additional overtime or begin paying their own health insurance costs. The National Guard would also have to cancel training exercises.

Leahy said this is why the Senate needed to act urgently to pass the funding legislation.

“National Guard all over the country will be forced to cancel needed training to carry on their mission at home and abroad,” Leahy said. “If we did nothing, that would sort of be a security crisis entirely of our own making in what it would do to the Capitol Police and what it would do to our National Guard.”

The bill provides $70.7 million for Capitol Police salaries and general expenses, with another $31.1 million going to officer overtime. Another $4.4 million will go directly to wellness and trauma support, which will include the hiring of six additional mental health professionals and wellness resilience specialists. In addition, $2.5 million is set aside to reimburse peer-to-peer trauma support for members of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The passage of funding to help with officers’ mental health and increase their access to those services comes just two days after Capitol and Metropolitan Police Department officers who defended the seat of the federal government on Jan. 6 told Congress to prioritize officers’ state-of-mind.

U.S. Capitol Police Private First-Class Harry Dunn told lawmaker during the first meeting of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol that he wanted members to look over those offered services.

“I also respectfully ask that this select committee review the services available to us and consider whether they are sufficient enough to meet our needs, especially with respect to the amount of leave that we are allowed,” Dunn said.

The bill passed Thursday also provides $300 million in funding to upgrade fortifications at the U.S. Capitol. That portion includes some $283 million to upgrade windows and doors at the building and another $17 million for the installation of new cameras around the Capitol and its office buildings.

Another $521 million will reimburse the cost of the National Guard’s deployment to Washington in January.

Other provisions include $100 million in funding for the Afghan special immigrant visa program, bumping the total number of authorized visas for those refugees to 8,000. Funding for Afghan refugee relief programs currently total over $1 billion.  

Follow Jack Rodgers on Twitter

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit