Budget Hearing - Supreme Court of the United States
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House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 3
Both are proper in my view, but in the case of the court's essential independence, difficult. I want to begin this discussion today, though, on the budget by noting that the very real threats faced by our judiciary, which the chairman has mentioned, is in our mind. According to the US Marshal Service, more than 200 federal judges have had threats made against them in this fiscal year alone. With a deeply divided country and increasingly violent rhetoric being directed at judges, Congress must provide sufficient funding to ensure the safety of all judicial personnel. The FSGG bill already advanced by the Appropriations Committee would provide 9.62 billion for the judiciary and 207 million dollars for the Supreme Court itself.
That's a 4.8 percent and 7.3 percent increase respectively. Included in the bill is a 28.9 million increase for court security. At the same time, while we take measures to protect the physical safety of judges and court staff, Congress also has a responsibility to safeguard the independence of our judiciary and its ability to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans. Part of that is making certain that there is adequate funding for the public defenders, and I'm glad that we were able to address the budget shortfall for defenders serving in fiscal year 26. In fiscal 27, the committee supported funding defender services at 1.79 billion dollars, with an increase of 26 million over the last year.
That is a constitutional responsibility both the courts and Congress have. The rule of law depends on a judiciary that is properly funded, especially now when we need a strong judiciary to protect Americans from the imposition of a theory, in my view, of executive supremacy. This administration is routinely engaging in conduct that tests the limits of our Constitution. We must remember that our republic is a three-legged stool: the Congress, the executive, the judiciary. I believe that each branch must be held accountable by the other two, as well as that each branch has a constitutional duty to protect the constitutionally granted powers of the other two.
The American people whom we represent expect the Supreme Court and all our federal courts to play its constitutional role as a transparent and neutral arbiter of the law. Just as we in Congress must do our duty to hold the executive and judicial branches accountable, so too must the court carry out its responsibility to keep an overreaching executive or legislature in check without overreaching itself.
At the same time, I believe the court has a responsibility to guard against the executive subverting the Article 1 powers of the Congress from usurpation by the executive. That was the founder's genius of separation of powers and the assurance of checks and balances. That is how America's judiciary maintains the trust of the people and prevents constitutional crisis. As John Adams said, we are a nation of laws, not of men. Maintaining the checks and balances to ensure that precept that precept prevails remains the difficult but necessary job of each of the branches.
In doing so, each branch will earn the structural deference our founders intended and they believed essential to perpetuate the Democratic Republic they so ably constructed. Justices, I thank you and your seven colleagues for the work that you do, and I look forward to this hearing and what you have to say today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Hoyer. I now recognize the ranking member of our full committee, the gentlelady from Connecticut, Ranking Member DeLauro, for her opening remarks.
Rosa DeLauro
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you and Ranking Member Hoyer. And maybe I'll start with may it please the court and may it please the Congress. Justice Kagan, Justice Coney Barrett, welcome. Thank you so much for appearing before this committee today. The last time, as has been said, any sitting justice of the Supreme Court appeared before this committee was in 2019.
And my hope is that this sets a precedent on the role of the United States House of Representatives. I fully appreciate the unique constitutional role of the court and the immense responsibilities each of you carries as members of our nation's highest tribunal. Judicial independence is fundamental to our constitutional system, and nothing about today's hearing should be understood as diminishing that principle. At the same time, independence does not preclude accountability. Cabinet secretaries, agency heads, and leaders of independent institutions routinely appear before Congress to explain how taxpayer dollars are being spent and to answer questions regarding their budget requests.
And the Supreme Court should be no exception. Each year, Congress exercises one of its core conditional constitutional responsibilities by appropriating funds for the federal judiciary. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the court appear before this committee each year to discuss its needs, to answer questions from the representatives of the American people. As two of our nation's foremost constitutional scholars, I thank you. I thank you for recognizing that the Constitution vests the power of the purse in the Congress in bringing your budget before us today.
Turning now to your fiscal year 2027 budget. No one can ignore the disturbing rise in threats directed at members of the federal judiciary. It is not lost on me or any of us the increasing prevalence and intensity of threats against not only you and your colleagues on the Supreme Court, but against judges throughout the federal judiciary. As of the 1st of July, there have been 370 threats made to federal judges, according to the US Marshal Service. During the entirety of last year, there were 564 threats made.
At this rate, we are looking at a 31% year-over-year increase in threats against federal judges. That is simply and deeply an alarming rise. We are not strangers here to this heightened threat environment.
Members on both sides of the aisle have seen an increase in serious, credible threats of violence as well. This poses a danger not only to public officials, but to the institution of democracy as a whole. Our system cannot function without a reasonable guarantee of safety. In recognition of this need, we approved on a bipartisan basis more than $890 million for lower court security for fiscal year 2026, an increase of over $140 million compared to the previous year. In the spring, this committee passed a funding bill which included over $920 million for lower court security, a further increase of almost $30 million and equal to the amount proposed in your budget request.
We are carefully considering the additional funding requested to fortify the Supreme Court and increase security for yourselves, your families, and your colleagues. We are, of course, happy, more than happy to provide the resources necessary to ensure the safety and the security of the judicial branch. But we must be diligent in our duty as appropriators. For instance, will this additional funding for security be sufficient for the future, and how will that be measured? Will you need to come back again for further increases, or will this be a one-time infusion and will that suffice?
This is a gravely serious issue, and we must make sure taxpayers' money is handled well. What action is the court taking to strengthen public confidence through ethics, transparency, and accountability? It is no secret that political divisions in our country have grown deeper over the past decade or more. That, I believe, is one factor that has contributed to the erosion of trust in our system, including the Supreme Court. Various scandals have also plagued the court in recent years, from leaked decisions to financial entanglements and conflicts of interest, contributing to a growing sense among the public that our government exists to serve special interests and not the public good.
The proportion of Americans who have confidence in our courts has declined from roughly 60% a decade ago to around 35% in 2024, according to Gallup. A democracy cannot sustain itself if the public has no faith in its institutions. We must all work to rebuild the trust of the American people that has been lost. To restore this trust, we must provide more transparency through increased financial disclosure requirements and a binding, enforceable code of ethics. The status quo of self-policing, voluntary disclosure, and unenforceable guidelines is woefully insufficient.
I say this to provide the public with the reassurance that they deserve that when a decision is handed down, it is the result of rigorous constitutional analysis, not private parochial interest. Over the past few weeks, as we have approached and celebrated our nation's 250th birthday, I've spent time reflecting on the founding and on the genius of the framers. Their insistence on an independent judiciary that has, in Hamilton's words, and I quote, "neither force nor will, but merely judgment," end quote, has proved indispensable to the endurance of our democracy. I believe we all share a commitment to preserving both the independence of the judiciary and the public's confidence in it. Independence and accountability are not competing values; they are complementary pillars of a constitutional democracy worthy of the public's trust.
Thank you so much for appearing before us today. I look forward to your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
David Joyce
Thank you, Ranking Member DeLauro. Today we welcome the testimony of Justice Kagan and Justice Coney Barrett of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Kagan, without objection, your full written testimony will be entered into the record. With that in mind, we ask you to please summarize your opening statement in five minutes.
Elena Kagan
Chairman Joyce, Ranking Member Hoyer, Ranking Member DeLauro, thank you for giving Justice Barrett and me the opportunity to present the Supreme Court's fiscal year 2027 budget request. But if you don't mind, Chairman Joyce, before I do that, I would like to say a few words about Senator Graham's untimely passing. Senator Graham, of course, was a member of this House before he became a senator, and in part I wish to express the entire Court's condolences to his sister, the rest of his family, his many friends and colleagues here in the House, in the Senate, and elsewhere, on behalf of the entire Court. But I'd also like to make a few more personal comments. You know, it's not very often, well, I'll just say that I didn't get many Republican votes when I was confirmed to the Supreme Court.
And that's the usual state of things today. Not many Republicans vote for the nominees of somebody selected by a Democratic president, and not many Democrats do the same for someone selected by a Republican president. And one would not expect such a cross-party, if you will, vote, certainly from somebody from a deep red or deep blue state. And yet Senator Graham voted for me. And I vividly remember, because he was a vivid person, the conversation that we had in his office prior to my hearing, where he got to know me.
It was a long conversation. He took the opportunity to get to know me. He questioned me with great seriousness and great knowledge about my record as Solicitor General, including particularly the various terrorism issues that that office had dealt with over the time I was Solicitor General. And I still more vividly remember the conversations that we had at my hearing itself. In the last day or so, many people have talked about how funny Senator Graham was.
I think Al Franken said he was the funniest man in the Senate. But what I remember about that hearing was that somehow Senator Graham made me look funny, which is a harder thing entirely, by asking me what I had done on Christmas the following year. I'll skip the back and forth, but many people said to me afterwards, that exchange with Senator Graham was the moment my confirmation was sealed. So I want to express my gratitude towards him, not only for his support, but for approaching the confirmation process with the kind of seriousness that he did and the kind of respect he did. And I never got to know Senator Graham very well, but I can see why so many people will deeply miss him.
And I just wanted to convey that on behalf of me and again express the condolences of the entire Court to his family and friends. We are very appreciative, Mr. Chairman, of the subcommittee's constructive engagement and support. You and your staff have been with us each step of the way as we've added security funding to meet the challenges of these times. I personally have enjoyed our regular meetings together, which have often occurred at the Court. Our respective staffs also speak and share information regularly, and I look forward to our future work.
The Supreme Court's funding is provided separately from the lower federal courts and split between two appropriations, one for salaries and expenses related to the daily operations of the court and another for care of the building and grounds. We will address the operating budget today. The Architect of the Capitol will submit a separate statement concerning our buildings and grounds. The court's operating budget funds the daily activities you'd expect in any federal courthouse, such as library and research services, case management, visitor services, information technology, facility management, and security. We carry out our work with relatively modest funding.
Our budget represents just 2% of the judiciary branch's total funding, which in turn represents 1/10th of 1% of the federal budget. Nonetheless, we take our responsibility as fiscal stewards very seriously. In fiscal year 2027, the court is requesting an additional $14 million, a 7% increase for salaries and expenses. Over the last five fiscal years, the Supreme Court's funding needs have grown on average 15% per year. Aside from annual inflationary increases, recent growth in the court's budget has been almost entirely for security expenses.
The majority of last year's funding increase went to shifting the responsibility for residential security of the justices from the Marshal Service to the Supreme Court Police. I first joined the court in 2010. Our security was very different at the time. The Supreme Court Police focused almost exclusively on protecting the building, and our IT department focused on supporting the latest BlackBerry devices. I didn't have a security team of my own, and I was accompanied by security personnel only when I participated in work-related public events.
We began expanding our security program in earnest in 2017, initially at the behest of members of Congress. We engaged government and private industry experts to evaluate our needs on an ongoing basis. We started by expanding personal security beyond the Chief Justice so that associate justices also received small security details, much too small as it turns out. As threat assessments called for larger details, and as overtime costs correspondingly rose, we requested funding for more officers, vehicles, and support staff. As events at the Capitol and other federal courthouses revealed our building's vulnerabilities, we also added new physical security systems.
When personal threats increased following the Dobbs leak, we expanded our residential security and threat assessment activities. Similarly, as online attacks grew in number and sophistication, we requested additional cybersecurity resources. Our strategy has been consistent across security functions: expand incrementally but effectively to meet evolving security challenges. We are not alone in this. Although orders of magnitude smaller, the Supreme Court's police department is modeled after your own Capitol Police department.
The two departments have matching pay tables and similar organizational charts. They work closely together on threats pertaining to the Capitol campus and beyond. They also face many of the same challenges, including officer recruitment and retention, and they have implemented many of the same solutions to address those challenges. Over the last five years, the Capitol Police department's annual operating needs have increased 70%, a figure similar to the court's. For fiscal year 2027, Capitol Police requested a 16% increase.
As neighbors, our two police departments will continue, I'm very sure, to work cooperatively together.
Our respective departments' growing needs are obvious given current conditions. The Capitol Police Chief recently testified that threats against Congress are up 50% this year. The Supreme Court Police expect a smaller but still very substantial 38% annual increase in threats this year, which follows a 25% increase last year. For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize. But as the Chief Justice has said, all members of the Court continue to do their jobs as they believe legally right, adjudicating cases without fear or favor.
We are grateful to the Supreme Court Police for all they do to support our ability to do so. Again, we thank you for your invitation to come here. While we cannot comment on decisions or pending cases, Justice Barrett and I are happy to answer any budget-related questions you may have.
David Joyce
Thank you, Justice Kagan. And now I recognize myself for questions. Chief Justice Roberts himself referenced an rise in threats in the judicial branch in his 2024 year-end report. He specifically cited more than a thousand threats investigated against federal judges in just the preceding five years. Would you talk about how the volume and nature of threats against the Court has changed over the past several years, particularly following the Dobbs decision and the 2022 incident at Justice Kavanaugh's home?
Has the threat level changed in 2026, and what do you believe is driving that trend?
Amy Coney Barrett
The numbers, you know, as you've mentioned, it was up 25% last year, on track for 38% this year, and those statistics sound abstract, but being on the receiving end of them is not, so I thought I would just share a little bit about how the threats have affected me and my family personally. They have required me to, or my children to think about and see things that children should not have to see or think about. One example is when threats to my life were particularly intense a few years ago around the time of the Dobbs leak, my security detail sent me home with a bulletproof vest, and I carried it into my house, put it into my bedroom, dropped it down on a table, turned around and my 12-year-old son was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, and he wanted to know what it was and why I had it, and I didn't know how to respond because maybe I lack imagination, but I didn't expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one. It's also been reported in the news that roughly six weeks ago I was the victim of a swatting incident. At that point, my teenage son, one of my teenage sons opened the door to go out with friends and saw in our street, it was full of police cars who had responded to a false report of gunshots and raised voices in my home.
I was very, very grateful that I had Supreme Court Police outside my home because they were able to stop and meet with and explain to the county police that it had been a false alarm, and so the police didn't actually attempt to enter our home. Many of us, me included, have received threatening anonymous deliveries designed to intimidate and harass us. They are often sent in the name of Judge Salas's son, who I think as you mentioned in the beginning, Mr. Chairman, was deceased, is deceased because he was killed by a disgruntled lawyer who showed up at Judge Salas's home intending to kill her, but her son, 20 years old at the time, opened the door and took the bullet instead, her husband standing behind was seriously injured. So I think the message on these deliveries being sent in his name is clear. As Justice Kagan said, federal judges across the country throughout the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, continue to do their jobs without fear or favor, but the threat level is really high.
David Joyce
Over the last few years, we've seen an increase in First Amendment related activity around DC, including the Supreme Court campus. The Supreme Court building itself has had perimeter fencing up at various points in recent years. What is the current state of permanent physical security upgrades to the building, and how much of this budget request is dedicated to capital improvements versus ongoing personnel costs?
Elena Kagan
Most of the money for this increase is personnel and not building arrangements. We have occasionally put up perimeter fences. We don't like that. We want to express a commitment to be open and transparent to the public, as I know other governmental institutions do as well. Occasionally we have found it necessary, given the threat level, to put up some barriers, but they come down as quickly as we can take them down.
So some small part of the funding request is for building improvements, but mostly it's for security personnel.
David Joyce
Protecting the court and justices involves coordination between the Supreme Court police, obviously, the US Marshals Service, Secret Service, Capitol Police, and local law enforcement, depending on your location. Would you walk us through how those responsibilities are divided and whether there are any gaps or redundancies in this structure that we should be aware of?
Amy Coney Barrett
We are primarily taken care of by the Supreme Court police. When we needed additional residential security and the Supreme Court police was unable to staff that, the Marshals Service did help us, and so our homes were protected by the Marshals Service, I might be wrong about this, two years or so. The Marshals Service was not able to sustain that level of support, and so they asked the Supreme Court police to take that over, and the Supreme Court police is now doing that with the help of contractors. We coordinate with Marshals Service, you know, sometimes in travel, but really the Supreme Court police does the bulk of it, and I think for physical safety, there's coordination with the Capitol Police given that our grounds are so close.
Elena Kagan
And I should say we like it that way, to have our own police force rather than to be reliant on the Marshals Service, which is within the Department of Justice. This way we just get more control over our own security arrangements. Some of you may recall that last year we asked for a supplemental request, and that was to deal with the problem that we had thought that we had a longer stretch of time to make the transition between the Marshals Service and the Supreme Court police. In the end, we had to make it more quickly than we thought we would, and we're very grateful to the various committees in both the House and Senate for making sure that we had the supplemental monies that were, that enabled us to make that transition more quickly than we had thought was necessary.
Thank you. I now recognize Ranking Member Hoyer for any questions he may have.
Steny Hoyer
Thank you very much, and again, thank you for your testimony. We're all very concerned about the security and the safety of our judiciary, not only because of you individually, but because of the impact it would have on our system and the disincentive for people to serve in the roles that are so critically important to our society. Let me go to the staffing. You said similar, the pay levels are similar to the Capitol Police, and that they obviously work together and interface together. Is your budget now sufficient so that you will not have contract employees, outside contractors protecting your homes?
Speaker 10
Not at this point. The goal is to be able to staff so that we can entirely absorb residential security within our office, and I'm sure our staff can provide more details about the timeline for that, but at this time it is not.
Steny Hoyer
Will the budget that is projected for fiscal year 27 allow you to do that? Do you know?
Elena Kagan
I think still not, but we will be getting closer. And certainly our goal, and we want it to be as short-term a goal as we possibly can, is to get to the point where we're not reliant on any outside contractors.
Steny Hoyer
I think it's critically important to have people who really know you, your habits, your to-and-froing.
You are speaking to the choir there.
Steny Hoyer
Well, as someone who had a security detail for 20 years in my previous positions, I found it critically important that they got to know me and my habits and the habits of my family, and made them much more proficient in protecting me. So we want to make sure that's the case. Let me go to, and I'm not asking you about the substance of decisions, but I am asking you, there has been a substantial increase in what I guess we call shadow decisions. Is that a budget-related or policy-related phenomenon?
Amy Coney Barrett
Well, let's see. I think that litigants have long had the ability to seek interim relief from the court, but I think you're certainly right, Ranking Member Hoyer, that we have seen a big change in the volume and the nature of such requests. The court is doing its best to adapt and respond. I think it's a policy question, not so much a budget one. I don't know if you have an additional thought.
Steny Hoyer
And so there would be additional questions. Does that impact on the transparency which you referred to in not putting up fences so that people had access? There are concerns obviously that these shadow dispositions impact adversely on the knowledge the public has about how the court makes its decisions and who is making what decisions. Do you want to comment on that?
Elena Kagan
Ranking Member Hoyer, you know, there are definitely issues with respect to the emerge, we call it the emergency docket. Some of us call it the interim docket. It's a terminology nightmare. I call it the emergency docket. And there are definitely questions about how it's appropriate to use that docket, when it's appropriate to use that docket, the standards to be applied, the way those standards actually work out in individual cases.
And you see that in some of our decisions because we are in many, if not most, of these cases not unanimous. There will be a majority and a dissent. The reason I think it's probably not appropriate, at least not now, to call it the shadow docket is because we have done, I think, a better job in the recent past of where appropriate, and it's not always appropriate, but where appropriate, explaining ourselves at least to a moderate degree. So I think if you had asked me this question a year ago, I might have said that there were some cases, and in fact I did say, I had said in some public events, that there were some cases where we did so little explanation of what lay behind our order that lower courts had a great deal of difficulty trying to figure out what that order was.
Were we saying something about the merits of the case? Were we saying about something about who had standing to contest the merits? Were we saying something about appropriate remedies? Nobody knew. I don't think that that's so much a problem anymore.
I think that as we've gotten more experienced in these constant requests that are coming to us about requests for emergency relief, that we better recognize that at least sometimes there is a need for additional information. And we have issued opinions and sometimes majority and dissenting opinions accordingly.
Thank you very much. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mr. Amodei for any questions he may have.
Mark Amodei
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To provide some context, obviously security is probably rightfully so at the top of the pyramid as we as we discuss the court and its budget. How's business? I mean, you know, anybody know where you are, anybody filing this, that, and you've kind of touched on it a little bit in response to Mr. Hoyer's questions, but to have an idea of how things are running in the machine of, well, we got nine justices and here's who comes to us and here's what we're doing, here's what we're turning down, here's what we're accepting, just to have kind of a background context to this discussion about security. So however you want to address that, how's business go?
Amy Coney Barrett
Yeah, well, business is business as usual, or maybe not as usual. So we do everything we can to be transparent and to welcome the public into the court. We've really taken strides in adapting our website to make it more user-friendly, so people can come to our website, they can easily access all the briefs, all the opinions. The website also has information about who the nine justices are, the history of the building, that sort of thing. Our courtroom is open to the public.
We routinely have public courtroom lectures to groups that come in. I believe all of my colleagues, I know I do, speak to groups and school groups that come through to educate them about the court. Our curator has exhibits throughout the first floor of the court to educate people about the court, including a wonderful exhibit that's up about Cooper versus Aaron. We have the Cooper bench from the famous case that's out in the court right now, complete with a video explanation of it in which all nine of us participated. So I do see a need for educating the public about what it is the court is doing.
And so the court, I think, has done its best to try to make that accessible to the public.
Mark Amodei
Great, thank you. How about caseload? What's the case, I know threats are way up. How's caseload?
Elena Kagan
Well, we have, as Ranking Member Hoyer suggested, we have a more than ordinary emergency caseload. I would say we have about an ordinary regular docket. If you look back really a number of decades, our docket has gone down. You know, when I clerked at the court, so that was, I'm afraid to say how long ago, but in the late 1980s, the court handled about 140 cases a year. The court now handles, in terms of regular argued cases, maybe 70 cases a year, so a significant decrease.
There's a cottage industry in explanations for why that decrease took place over time. But for all the time that I've been on the court, we've been relatively stable. So the last 15 years or so, we're doing about, you know, maybe one year it's 75, one year it's 60, but something on that order. So we continue to hear cases every month and to always decide, always issue all our opinions before July 4th every year.
Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Rosa DeLauro
Thank you, Mr. Amodei. The chair will now recognize the lovely lady from Connecticut, Ms. DeLauro, for any questions she may have.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And just a point before I get to my questions with regard to the exchange with Justice Kagan and Congressman Amodei, it would appear that these are the court statistics. In 2006, there were 10,256 total cases. In term 2024, 45, almost 4,600 cases. So it is about a 55% decline.
I have to imagine in analyzing that... This is in petitions are we talking about? Yeah. So that it may be that what happens there is the interim shadow, whatever docket we're talking about here, that may come may be a part of that. So that there has been, you know, a fewer cases than you pointed out that have happened in prior decades.
And then the issue of staffing is, you know, how commensurate is then the staffing to what the case is. But let me just, and I won't get into this, but in terms of there's always the view out there of what about cameras in the court, you know, so we have them everywhere here. Is that good or bad? Oh, okay. I'll take a breath on that.
No, it's... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to turn it around and ask you. No, no, it's very good. It's very good. It's called transparency.
Anyway, my questions. As members of Congress, we follow very strict gift and ethics rules. We're not allowed to accept any gift if it's over $50 at one time and there's a total value is more than $100 in the calendar year from any individual. There are exceptions and an entire committee, we have an ethics committee that decides whether a trip or a gift is allowed. But as justices of the Supreme Court, you can and do accept these gifts without any committee or without hesitation, or maybe there's hesitation, but in any case, you can accept these gifts.
The Supreme Court does not have a gift ban or a binding code of ethics. I know in 2023, a voluntary code of ethics was adopted, but it is entirely self-policing without any mechanism for enforcement. It is more permissive than the code that applies to all other federal judges. And just in full transparency, I strongly support Ranking Member Raskin's High Court Gift Ban, which would bring the Supreme Court justices' rules in line with the rest of the federal government. Based on the financial disclosures available for the justices, tickets and trips have exceeded this threshold of the what is in the voluntary code this last year.
So a couple questions from this. Is this a time to make this a requirement instead of a suggestion? That's my first question.
Amy Coney Barrett
Do you want me to do gifts? I can do... I, Ranking Member DeLauro, I would be happy to address the question about gifts. The court follows the restrictions of the Judicial Conference of the United States applicable to all judges with respect to gifts. And we are not, there are restrictions on our ability to accept gifts.
We're not permitted to accept gifts with, you know, some nuances and some exceptions from litigants before the court. And any gifts that we do accept, this is by statute, there's a statutory limit on any on reporting that requires reporting of any gift. I think the limit is about $500 right now.
You would know, they would be on our financial disclosures because we have to disclose that. So with respect to gifts, we do have constraints, and we do have our in-house counsel. I mean, anytime I have any question about how the code applies to a particular circumstance, I always call him. Did you want to address enforceability?
Elena Kagan
Uh, you know, on the the code of conduct, as as you noted, we the nine justices all agreed to a code of conduct. It's specifically geared towards the Supreme Court. As you also noted, there is a question about enforceability, and right now the the mechanism has no enforceability system. And this is something on which various people have have spoken in the past and and, you know, I've made my views known in the past, which is that I think we should work hard to try to figure out some enforcement system. I will say that that's an extremely difficult question for pretty obvious reason, I think, which is that I don't think that you would want an enforcement system that was controlled by the executive branch or by the legislature.
And this is because of what you said in your opening statement about the importance of judicial independence. You know, you don't want a president picking an inspector general to decide, you know, which of us is breaking the rules or how we're breaking the rules. So I think it really has to come from within the judiciary, and that's hard because, uh, you know, we sit at the top of the judiciary committee, so it's hard to figure out how to have a system that is makes use of judicial resources to police us. One idea that has been suggested by some people is to use respected retired judges. That has, you know, some pros, some cons.
I think that this remains an an open question, a question of discussion, uh, but so far we have not resolved any.
Ashley Hinson
Good morning. Thank you to both of you for coming before our committee today, and you were so welcoming to this full committee when we came over to visit with you a few years ago and to have some of these similar conversations about your security needs. And I am so sorry you're having to deal with many of these same threats that members of Congress and our families also deal with. And Justice Barrett, you were sharing that story about your twelve-year-old. My boys are thirteen and fifteen, and so I've had to have some of those very similar uncomfortable conversations with them about our our security posture even in the middle of Iowa.
So I am sorry you're having to deal with that. I think reasonable people can disagree and unreasonable people resort to violence, and unfortunately that's where we are. And so I appreciate your comments on that and know you are not alone in dealing with those challenges, but it is unfortunate nonetheless. I wanted to follow up on on something you started with about the coordination with the Marshals when you're traveling for speeches, because you talk about having the Supreme Court police force, but obviously working in coordination with other law enforcement when you're traveling for for speeches, some of those teaching opportunities, other engagements. So we know that those are not immune from protests and First Amendment activities as well.
Can you speak a little bit to what that work is like in terms of coordinating on the ground as you're traveling the country to have some of those conversations on the ground?
Amy Coney Barrett
I think some of that coordination might be something we would have to say that if you wanted to talk in a SCIF or with staff just about the operational details. But I think at a high level I can say that when we are, you know, appearing say at a university, there's a lot of coordination obviously between the university security staff and our security staff. The same is true whenever we're at an event with local police, there's coordination with local law enforcement authorities. And and when we are interacting with other entities within the judiciary, lower courts or circuit conferences, then there is a lot of coordination with the Marshal Service.
I think some of the specifics I'm probably should probably don't know enough to speak you know with with specificity but probably would have to say that would be like in a private meeting.
Ashley Hinson
No absolutely and I think happy to have a a further conversation about that because simply we would we just want to make sure that you you feel safe as you're going out and exercising your duties to to be open to the public right and and have those conversations in a public setting it's of utmost importance that you can do that and feel safe and that you're getting adequate law enforcement response on the ground no matter where you're having those conversations. Speaking of recruitment I just kind of wanted to talk about that as well because you mentioned that you're on par with Capitol Police and many of the arrangements are similar to what Capitol Police are. We know that the court's currently offering a $60,000 hiring bonus for Supreme Court Police. Can you speak a little bit to the difficulties that you're having in recruiting top talent to take some of these open positions and and where things currently stand with recruitment?
Elena Kagan
Yeah well this is a tough time to hire police officers. It's a challenging recruitment environment that maybe fewer people are going into the policing profession and and so you're competing with a lot of entities for the same top qualified people. Notwithstanding that we've we've managed to do pretty well we do offer a recruitment bonus we you know we we like to think we're a pretty good place to work and to we we take great care to to make that so. But it is it's a challenging time.
Ashley Hinson
Yeah. And how do you balance obviously that recruitment with some of the risks that I mean people very publicly see right and and you're the face of that obviously in not only the decisions that are made but obviously people come and see the court and people come want to hear from you. How do you balance that recruitment with some of those risks in terms of getting people in the door?
Elena Kagan
Yeah well people definitely come in the door. I mean we are you know we have many visitors to the court we have a packed courtroom most of the time when we when we hear argued cases. So we're trying you know very hard not to let it interfere with the court's openness to the public. And and we'll continue to to try our best to do that and just to make sure that we have the security personnel the security resources we need to ensure safety within an essentially public building.
Ashley Hinson
Yeah. And just a question about and maybe it's something that needs to be addressed in a SCIF as well because you think about the limelight that's on you and that may shift depending on a case that's being heard or a decision that's been offered. Do the number of officers or marshals assigned to you vary dependent on that limelight or is the detail pretty consistent no matter who you are?
Amy Coney Barrett
We are each assigned between four and eight members of a security detail but in particular moments when the need arises and especially if someone is under particular threat or if they're speaking more publicly so they're more in the limelight in an event that number increases and we're able to pull from other resources within the court.
Ashley Hinson
And over time we'd like that detail number to increase so if now it's four to six maybe eight members of a security detail you know we'd like to increase that over time when we get to our full staffing needs.
Mark Pocan
And as Ranking Member Hoyer had spoken and I know I'm out of time Mr. Chairman you know these people get to know your routines and making sure that you have people on your detail who are familiar with your activities is is critical. So thank you Mr. Chairman I yield back.
Speaker 13
Thank you Mrs. Hinson. Chair now recognizes Mr. Pocan for five minutes of questions.
Mark Pocan
I think there's no question that any of us, there should be no partisan difference in wanting to make sure everyone's secure. We have our own challenges as you've heard. I think holidays seem to bring it out for at least members of Congress. In my area, at Christmas time we had bomb-sniffing dogs. I was wondering if I was going to start having to have treats out there for them if they're going to be coming that often.
I couldn't make our most recent informal conversation but I remember a few years back you both were very generous with your time and I really appreciated that discussion. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you both for being here. So thank you both for that.
My brother's a judge in Milwaukee County. He recently, there was a court trial over someone who had threatened his life via phantom family court. So, you know, I'm glad you're here to talk about the security concerns, but I think hopefully you can tell we're like one party right now when it comes to this in making sure that you have that security. I do want to say though, I think at a 30,000-foot level, public also has some questions about our institutions and we, it's incumbent on us then, is to make sure that we're at times either explaining or reforming to meet where some of those concerns are. Right now at the executive branch level, I think, you know, people are seeing some unprecedented amounts of new things happening that in 250 years as a country haven't happened and that's causing concern.
Here, legislative branch, I would argue, I think people think we've lost our copies of the Constitution and that we're a co-equal branch of government, we're not doing our jobs. But I think when it comes to your branch, specifically the two areas I hear the most, and I do a lot of town halls, are the shadow docket or emergency interim docket, and then the issue around code of conduct. But let me, shadow docket's one I'd really like the explanation on. I'm not a lawyer, my brother is, but, you know, the amount of cases that you took up last year were surpassed, or the last session were surpassed 63 on this so-called shadow docket versus 56 on the regular. And if you go back in history during the Bush and Obama Solicitor General times, emergency relief was only done 18 times combined over 16 years, right?
So this is a huge change in how this, and I'm going to use shadow docket because I'm a journalism major, I was taught to talk at eighth-grade level so everyone understands it. That's the vernacular I think people understand. But, you know, these are, they're not really fully briefed, they're not fully argued opinions in the same way that I think that people are used to, the tradition of the respected tradition of the court. They're unsigned, usually emergency orders, but that definition of what's an emergency certainly seems to have changed given the number of cases. It usually was what, elections or like someone was on death row when you dealt with this, and now it's about whether trans people can serve in the military or cases that may not be seen by the public in the same way.
So my question is just help me understand this. You know, there's, I have a podcast and we had a conversation on this with an expert one time and they said a few suggestions they had. And let me run this by you and if you could just talk a little more about this so I can understand why the cases have gone up so much. You know, they suggested things like restoring more mandatory jurisdiction to the court so that you're not maybe cherry-picking in some ways, empowering lower courts to seek guidance from you ahead of time, so maybe sometimes that could take care of things, an Inspector General for the judiciary. Anything you want to talk about, those were some things that came up, but I would like to be able to explain to people next time I have a town hall, people ask about this, why this rise has happened in areas that I don't think we really expected those cases.
And while you said there might be a decline, I think just this Trump presidency alone in 16 months there's what, 34 of these, maybe my number's off, it might even be higher by now. There were 41 in the first Trump full term. That seems like a rapid expansion of this. So I talked too long, but if you could address that I'd appreciate it.
Amy Coney Barrett
Thank you, Congressman Pocan. I'll address something about the numbers and I saw something about this in the news in the last couple days. I'd have to sit down to figure out the numbers. I think that it could be that what the numbers are referring to are we have mandatory jurisdiction in a sense over all of these emergency applications because every one, every single one of them we have to either grant or deny. So to the extent that we've disposed of say 67, I'm not exactly sure what the number is, some of those may be denies.
It's not that there were 67 grants, but in every single case we wind up doing something on the emergency docket because we've either denied relief or we've granted relief.
So, you know, as long as we have that jurisdiction, we don't have the discretionary jurisdiction like we do on the merits docket where we have cert authority and we choose which cases to take. On the emergency docket, it's like you just take all comers and you have to grant or deny these motions as they're filed.
Elena Kagan
I didn't mean to suggest, Mr. Congressman Pocan, that the overall numbers had declined, just that there was a decline in the when we grant relief with no explanation, that we do that less frequently than we once did. But I think, you know, you've made some excellent points about the there are downsides of using emergency relief, that we don't get the kind of briefing that we ordinarily do, we don't get the the argument that we ordinarily get, and and we should consider those downsides when we decide how often to grant this relief. Now I will say that the court again, you know, as its question is like why are all these people coming to us for this relief when they didn't in the past? I think partly it has to do with the fact that the court did grant some of these petitions and then you encourage everybody else to bring them to you and now it's become you said like how's business, how's business is like business is pretty good on this side because people see that there is at least a potential for us to grant relief and so why not file a petition. And the court I think again has and there are there are differences, there are disagreements among the nine of us, we talk about this all the time, sometimes a majority does something and there is a dissent.
But I think over time we have at least tried to do better in in important cases ensuring that we have some degree of sort of regularish process so that there are some emergency petitions, for example the one that was just decided involving the Federal Reserve Bank, which we almost treat as though it were a regular case, in other words we ask for argument, we make sure we get sufficient briefing to decide it. So occasionally we've done that and that is something that I think we we need to consider going forward as well.
David Joyce
Thank you, Mr. Pocan, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cloud, for five minutes.
Michael Cloud
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Justices, for being here, it's great to see you again and thank you for the opportunity we've had to speak with you about this over at your place a couple times over the last few years. Most of my questions have been addressed in those meetings regarding security. I did want to just point out that this is not just your personal security, but it's also the IT systems that need to be updated, it's the cybersecurity that you're constantly attacked, that's also being addressed in this as well, correct?
Amy Coney Barrett
Correct, the cybersecurity attacks have been up, you know, by magnitudes year after year. AI is and the rapid advancement of AI is making that more and more possible. We haven't suffered the kind of paralyzing attacks that some of the lower courts have, but in seeing that, that has caused us to try to ramp up very quickly our cybersecurity protection. And so some of the funding that we're seeking is for additional cybersecurity experts who can come in and we've tried to proceed very responsibly, we've consulted, we had an external review done by experts and then we've assembled a tiger team inside the court to try to implement those suggestions because it obviously impacts not only the independence of the judiciary, but there are national security risks to having our systems be vulnerable.
Speaker 16
One of the big issues recently was the leak that happened and the court was doing its best effort with the tools available at the time to track down the leaker. I don't know if we've found the leaker yet, I don't think it's public.
Amy Coney Barrett
The Marshal issued a report at the conclusion of our internal investigation saying that we had not at that time.
But yeah, if she also said in that report that were additional evidence or leads to surface, that they would be pursued.
Elena Kagan
And there have been additional leaks over time too, and this is something that all nine justices take extremely seriously because we can't do our business, we can't engage in confidential communications, which is the best way to operate, is to be fully open with one's colleagues about one's views. And if you think that those views are going to appear on the front page of the newspaper, you pull back. You don't, you don't have the kinds of conversations that I think the court really depends on to do great work. And so, you know, this is something that is, has frustrated all of us and that we're continuing to make efforts to resolve.
Michael Cloud
Is it your view, if there's a police force that reported directly to the Supreme Court, that would include cybersecurity officials, I imagine, or any of the sort, is your, is it your view that they would be subject to congressional subpoena or would that be a separation of powers issue?
I don't think we have or are authorized to express a view on that.
Okay. One issue I do think that Americans are concerned with, and it's really appreciative to have you here, I wish we could have more of these because of our constitutional role to be a check in a sense on, not necessarily on you all, your decisions certainly, but on the judiciary system, is one thing that's really concerned me is what we've seen in nationwide injunctions, what we've seen in what's been lawfare in the sense of we've seen lawyers who were supporting the president be disbarred while those who campaigned and even attacked him invented extraneous legal platforms to go after him. There was no disciplinary action at all. And what concerns me about that is the ABA, the American Bar Association, doesn't serve officially as a gatekeeper, but in many ways serves as a gatekeeper, which traditionally that hasn't been that big of a deal, but they are the only recognized, they are the only accrediting agency for law schools recognized by the federal government. Yet lately they've kind of taken a partisan bent on a number of their policy outcomes and initiatives, including transgender surgery for children, advancing DEI requirements for accredited universities for law students, they've even targeted universities who did not embrace those.
They've weighed in on immigration policy, voting rights, opposed display of Ten Commandments in public schools. They have opinions on a number of different international issues, including urging support for the people of the Western Sahara self-determinant. You know, so it's just, it's all that to say it's gone beyond making sure that we have good people who are qualified representing us. Yet they serve in many ways as a gatekeeper. And I'm curious what would be the right way to approach that.
Texas Supreme Court, I know, issued an opinion that basically said they shouldn't be the sole gatekeeper anymore, at least for Texas's concern. Whether we should have more accreditors, whether we should leave that to the states, I think there's a congressional role in this, and so that's why I'm asking.
David Joyce
If I may, we have a hard stop of 11:45 because the justices need to go over to the Senate and testify there. I want to make sure everybody gets their five minutes. So, and if you can respond to that in very quick order, or we can move on to the next questioner, it's up to you.
Speaker 20
I'll say very quickly, each state is in charge of the admissions of bar requirements for lawyers, and so I think that lies with the states.
Kim Schrier
Thank you. Now recognize the gentlelady from Washington, Mrs. Schrier.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you both so much for being here. One of my concerns with Congress's increase in the security funding for members of Congress that we recently executed here was that it's not really addressing the root cause of the increased threats of violence and the underlying sort of lack of accountability for people making these threats. I don't want to make soft targets out of my local electeds, my teachers, my nurses, because we are hardening our security infrastructure as elected officials. You know, if my kitchen is flooding, I turn off the water before I start mopping up around the kitchen. And so I'm wondering what can be done to increase the prosecution and accountability of those who make threats against public servants, and how can these funds in this appropriation be leveraged to support that prosecution and turn down the volume and increase the accountability, because all taxpayers are bearing the brunt of these threats.
Elena Kagan
I think that that's largely a question to make to the Justice Department and to other prosecuting authorities. But, you know, we have no power to prosecute or not prosecute particular crimes, to decide where the priorities lie, and that that might be, that that incredibly important question might better be addressed to prosecuting officials.
Kim Schrier
One of the things I've wondered about is, you know, none of us want to talk about the threats that are made against us. We don't want to give anybody ideas, right, especially having young kids at home. But one of the questions is the evidence that's collected by Capitol Police, how are they making, how can their investigation be executed in a way that would provide supporting evidence for a prosecutor as they're considering picking up this case or not? Is that in the realm?
Amy Coney Barrett
I think that that would be something that our police department would be very happy to talk to you or your staff about in a private setting. I actually don't know the answer to that question of what the police do to maintain evidence to build a case, but I'm sure in a SCIF or other private setting, that would be something that you could explore.
Speaker 18
And would that be considered as part of this apportionment for security funding?
Amy Coney Barrett
That I don't know. That strikes me as general operational, as Justice Kagan said, we don't have any authority to prosecute within our branch and our police don't either, so that seems like it's a best practices, best current practices question about how the police handle that now.
Kim Schrier
Yeah, I mean, it's my view that as we are, you know, it's not just about the individual threat. We have to maintain our security, but the way that we are pursuing that security should be done in a way with the longer view towards more accountability and better use of taxpayer resources and a more deliberative democracy. I've seen some people make the argument that rising security concerns will lead justices to opt out of appearing at events when the crowd is known to not be friendly. Do you think there's any merit to that argument? And if so, how does that impact the credibility of the institution as it continues to be viewed, rightly or wrongly, by many as increasingly partisan?
Amy Coney Barrett
I can say that personally myself I've spoken at many events that I wouldn't describe as friendly. I've been protested a lot and spoken at events where I know protesters will be. And that doesn't deter me from appearing. But if there were serious threats at the facility, I've had to I've encountered some of that before, then of course you can't remain out in the public place. And that so that's different.
And I don't actually know and again this would be a question that perhaps could be discussed in a private meeting or SCIF. I don't actually know how often that has happened. But I think when there are actually threats to life, you know, then obviously the public event can't go forward.
Kim Schrier
I think it's it's I'm presuming rare for a a Supreme Court justice to have young children at home. I'm wondering, Justice Coney Barrett, if if the allocation being made here for security is sufficient for provision of security services at for your children.
Amy Coney Barrett
I'm very grateful for the residential security. I think that is the primary I mean that that that has just been huge for us. I think questions about oops, sorry, questions about the allocation of resources and the number of detail and that sort of thing, I think I would refer that to the SCIF as well.
Speaker 24
Thank you for your questions. And now recognize Mr. Edwards for his question.
Chuck Edwards
Thank you for being with us this morning. Because we're running close on time, I'm going to eliminate amenities and get straight to the questions. Does the court's IT budget include funding for AI-assisted legal research or document review tools? And if so, what safeguards are in place to maintain confidentiality?
Elena Kagan
I'm I'm I'm I don't think that our review budget that our budget includes a specific, you know, appropriation for AI. I think that, you know, this is a question that we're looking at very closely in terms of what our rules should be going forward, what the best practices in this area are in terms of how justices, how their clerks, how their assistants use AI and make sure that it's used appropriately, but not used on a where it's not where it's likely to create more dangers than than anything else.
Chuck Edwards
Have you identified any other opportunities to streamline administrative functions through technology or maybe even shared services?
Amy Coney Barrett
I think the court is always seeking efficiency and I think we operate on a pretty lean staff. In terms of how our technology works, I mean I I do think that our IT staff works very hard to make things work efficiently on the inside. As Justice Kagan said, I mean I know a lot of corporations and maybe Congress too are turning to AI to gain efficiencies and we're not there yet because of the risks that AI could present. But it is something that we're studying. And, you know, perhaps AI seems to be infiltrating everything, so I'm sure at some point in the future it will be at the court.
Chuck Edwards
I resist using the the letters AI. It's so abused. I'd rather just say new technology. But thank you. Speaking of staffing, what how many current unfilled positions are there in the Supreme Court?
And can you give us any perspective on what those are and how long that they may have been vacant?
Speaker 25
I do not know that. Does anyone know that? I think we'll have to get back to you on that. We can send something over.
Elena Kagan
As an appropriator, I'm always really curious about that sort of thing.
So every year we have these events where we give little pins to people and so forth, and especially when they retire. And they, you know, it's like 30 years on the court, 40 years on the court, 25 years on the court. So this is not a building which is in constant turnover in terms of its employees. There is really long-term service in this building. I think people like to work there.
We have a you know we have an incredibly the the amount of time that people spend on the court constantly amazes me.
I think people feel honored to work there, and the result is that we really don't have to worry about a lot of turnover.
Chuck Edwards
Last question on the appropriations front. Have there been any recent audits or reports by the AG where there were any material weaknesses found that have not yet been resolved?
Is that a no? No. That's a no.
Chuck Edwards
Okay. Well, then since that answer was so quick, let me ask one more question. What deferred maintenance or capital investment is there still listed as a backlog, and is that for public consumption?
Amy Coney Barrett
I think that the budget for the grounds is not part of our current security, our current budget request, so I'm not sure what maintenance or grounds expenses would be included in that of the architect of the Capitol.
Speaker 34
All right. Thanks. Next time we're going to bring your controller. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Congressman.
Glenn Ivey
There's a severe backlog in all federal buildings as far as deferred maintenance. Now I recognize Mr. Ivey for five minutes.
Mark Alford
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. And thank you to the justices for joining us today. I wanted to follow up on the shadow docket issue, or emergency docket issue.
We're not policing your vocabulary. You call it whatever you want.
Glenn Ivey
I recognize the sensitivity about it, but I do, and I thank you for your comments about this. We've found comments that you all had made at public events, and so I thought it's something that I could raise. One of the things I wanted to ask about is with respect to the injunctive relief, temporary injunctions that were put in place that had come up to you all and you all had looked at irreparable harm. I think Justice Barrett, you had kind of noodled about this publicly on a couple of occasions. And I wanted to get your take on that because, just to be candid, I represent Prince George's County.
We have tens of thousands of federal employees who've been laid off or forced out during this time period, in part during what's been going on with the litigation in these cases. And frankly, the strategy for many of these was if you can get injunctive relief for them so they can stay on the job, at least they can, you know, keep their house, keep their kids in college, make sure they can put food on the table. To the extent those injunctions were lifted because I guess some of these don't have opinions, but I guess some of the justices thought that this didn't constitute irreparable harm, you know, it was pretty damaging from the perspective of them. And it looked like the analysis was focused mainly from the government, or I mean the Trump administration's perspective. So I wanted to get your take on that.
To me?
Amy Coney Barrett
So I think the specifics of individual cases are something that we're not prepared to get into in the hearing, just because that would be, especially, I don't know exactly which of the orders that you're talking about, but especially if they were unreasoned orders, then to talk about the reasoning of them would disclose the internal deliberations of the court, which, you know, would be inappropriate for me to do. I would say that in our opinions, including in our emergency docket opinions, we lay out the factors that are considered, you know, in considering grants of emergency relief, excuse me, and irreparable harm is one of those factors, as is likelihood of success on the merits, balancing of the equities. And so I think the factors are laid out quite plainly, how they apply in any individual case, or how we have applied them in individual cases, I wouldn't want to...
Let's see.
Glenn Ivey
That's fair, but I'm not asking specifically for individual cases. Is there a general approach from your perspective, because you did lay out irreparable harm as one? And I think you also mentioned in one of your September 9, 2025 speeches that you did look at it from the Trump administration's perspective.
You...
Go ahead.
Please finish.
Glenn Ivey
I wanted to see if there's also a view from the perspective in this instance as the plaintiffs who were, or the parties who were government employees or whoever, who were on the opposite side of that.
Amy Coney Barrett
Okay, I now understand your question. Yes, those factors, they're from a case called Nken, those factors, it's built into the test itself that you gauge irreparable harm, likelihood of success on the merits from the point of view of the applicant. So if it were the employees, if they were the applicant, it would be the irreparable harm to the employee of not receiving the relief that they seek. If the person who seeks emergency relief is say the government, then it would be evaluated from that perspective. That's just built into the test itself, which is in the opinions and the cases.
Elena Kagan
I do think though that the test also has room for what we call the balance of the equities, and that allows you to take into consideration also the what's going to happen to the non-applicants in any given case. Now again, how that happens and, you know, is a different question.
Glenn Ivey
True. Excellent. And just other quick point on that front, you know, for example NIH, I won't ask you to answer this about the particulars of it, but I ran into one of my constituents had been a scientist doing research on Alzheimer's and the clinical trial was shut down and she was forced out, and so it terminated not only her work but the scientific research that we could all benefit from. Two quick points before I run out of time. One is the Secret Service from the standpoint of your work with respect to your protection.
We did a lot of work, the committee was set up after the attempt to assassinate President Trump, well not candidate Trump then, and there were a lot of deficiencies found frankly by what the Secret Service had done. I think they've improved what their work is, I'd encourage you to have your police team do that. And then lastly, I know you answered with respect to Mr. Pocan, the ethics...
Speaker 28
The five minutes are up, please. I would now recognize Mr. Alford, please.
Mark Alford
Thank you Chairman Joyce and Ranking Member, and thank you for the justices for coming today, really appreciate that. I just I do want to set the record straight as we begin though. While we all love hearings before we vote on the appropriations bills, we have a very aggressive schedule for these appropriations bills. The chairman's objective was to finish them all before the end of June, we actually got them done by mid-June. That facilitated a need for rapidity and trying to make sure that we got as much information as possible.
Part of that included coming to the Supreme Court on March 5th, and we discussed many of these things. This was a bipartisan effort to go with your invitation to come and hear your budgetary needs. And so I appreciate that endeavor. I appreciate the members of this subcommittee who did go across the street to hear your concerns, and we heard some very disturbing deficiencies. And while we can't talk about all those in this public setting today, please know that those are noted, those were included in the consideration for the appropriations bill that we did complete.
And one of the issues that came up was the need for a security entrance for the Supreme Court building. Justice Kagan, could you describe what this will look like and did we provide the adequate funding to make this happen?
Elena Kagan
I think we don't know exactly what it would look like, but we are concerned about people coming into the building right now before they've been checked essentially and only being checked when they're in the building. And we're concerned as well with the ability to enter for cars to enter. We've actually gone a significant way in addressing that issue essentially by closing off the street behind the court, and we're very grateful to local authorities for their willingness to do that.
Mark Alford
I think the point we made at the time is we have the beautiful visitor center here at the Capitol that was in part a security concern. It's also a great visitor center. It would be kind of mirrored in a smaller fashion across the street at the Supreme Court. And also what the President has proposed with a new security entrance to the White House with a ballroom on top but a security measure underneath in a bunker. So thank you for clearing that up.
One of the things I did mention at our in-person meeting, which again I'm grateful for, was a growing concern about the threats that drones pose to government buildings and protected officials, not just across the street at the Supreme Court building but your homes as well. How is the Supreme Court preparing for that evolving threat, and are there any additional authorities or resources that we should consider to make sure that you are protected? And if you would like, we could do this in a SCIF at a later time if you feel that it's something that needs to be addressed there or if you want to get it addressed generally.
Amy Coney Barrett
I could say generally that we share that concern. Generally, I think drone mitigation measures are certainly on security's radar.
Mark Alford
Well, we want to keep on top of that. And Chairman, maybe we could do something in a SCIF setting to where, you know, this is a growing threat to all government officials. And it doesn't matter what party you're in, nonpartisan, this is a threat that needs to be addressed.
Elena Kagan
And I think, Congressman, that there might be ways to address whether we have all the authority we need currently or whether there needs to be additional statutory authority that would really allow us to deal with that issue.
Mark Alford
That would be an interesting conversation. We're facing that here on the Hill as well and in our state and local authorities. We just are wrapping up the FIFA World Cup in Kansas City, and that was a concern as well, the authorities to actually defend against drone activity. Last question. The court budget request in recent years has included increased security funding for the justices as public threats against government officials have continued to rise.
You travel for speeches, teaching opportunities. How is security funded and coordinated when justices are traveling, particularly with respect to protecting your families?
Amy Coney Barrett
Residential security remains at our house as normal when we're away. The house remains protected, so the family is protected. And when we travel, we have our security details travel with us because unfortunately the threat travels with us. You know, it doesn't just stay at the building.
David Joyce
If there are any gaps in that where it needs additional funding, please let us know, alright? And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Sanford Bishop
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the associate justices for your appearance and let me say at the outset that I fully support and appreciate the need for the upgraded security that has been requested and I think Congress will be responsive. Uh, the Supreme Court contracts many of the security services and for example, you contract with the Chertoff Group since 2018 for the services it's provided include consultation on protecting your homes and review of the Dobbs leak investigation that was conducted by the Marshal's office. In addition, the individuals who man the magnetometers at the court entrance are not members of the Supreme Court police, but they work for an outside firm. And each of these contracts can run into the millions of dollars, yet the court does not have the same contracting obligations under federal law that other parts of the government do.
Thank you, Mr. Alford. Chair now will recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop, for five minutes.
Uh, in the interest of transparency, would the court consider publicly listing any contract that it has with an outside firm, security or otherwise, uh, whose annual value is greater than a million dollars?
Speaker 35
I think we have, uh, Justice Barrett and I have not considered that question or addressed that question, so I think we would need to go back and and take it to people who have thought about that issue more.
Sanford Bishop
Okay. All right, but let me switch to, uh, another more policy-driven concern. As of July 10th of this year, 75% of President Trump's appointees to the circuit and district court judgeships over the combined course of his first term and the current term have been men. Additionally, 84% of the appointees have been white, male or female. And when looking across all of the active circuit and district court judges as of July 10th, regardless of which president appointed them, nearly 60% are men.
Additionally, 66% are white. Can you both speak to the importance of having a diverse federal bench that's representative of the country's demographics and might you also add the experiential and other diversity for the courts itself, for the court itself in your choice of, uh, your clerk pool?
Elena Kagan
Well, I'll take the the clerk pool, uh, if if that's okay. Uh, you know, we all run our chambers differently and each of us hires for himself or herself and so I can really only speak for myself on on on this. I value diversity of all kinds. I value diversity along the lines that you mentioned, I value diversity in terms of backgrounds and, uh, views and, uh, you know, to make sure that I get all different kinds of backgrounds and experiences when I'm talking with my clerks, um, in particular. And, uh, I've, uh, you know, found over the years that it it that that's perfectly possible to do.
Um, you know, the standards for a Supreme Court clerk are very high. It requires outstanding, uh, law school records.
It requires, you know, two prior clerkships usually, maybe one, and judges who think very highly of the person. Sometimes now we're looking at people who have worked in other jobs before they come here. And we still have more qualified people, more exceptionally qualified people than any of us are able to take. And I find over time that, you know, that it's good to have diversity of background and experience and that that is, you know, very possible to do given our applicant pool now.
Sanford Bishop
Thank you. Very quickly, I'm told that most of the justices and their clerks read your briefs electronically. So I just want to ask why the court requires litigants to print and file 40 copies of their briefs in most instances, which can sometimes cost them up to $10,000. Is there any basis for income-based waivers and doesn't the printing requirement now seem to be unnecessary?
Amy Coney Barrett
We do have in forma pauperis status, which helps indigent litigants. I will say that some of us do read hard copies. I am old school in that respect. But I think those questions are ones that the clerk's office works out to help those who cannot afford.
Speaker 30
Thank you. Now the chair recognizes the vice chair of this committee, Mr. LaLota, for his five minutes.
Nick LaLota
Thank you, Chairman. Justices, good to see you. It was good to see you on March 5th at the court and we appreciate you being here today. Justice Kagan, thank you for your warm comments on Senator Graham. I, like many Americans, watched your interaction with him during your confirmation hearing.
It was a good moment of bipartisan candor, one that we don't have enough of in this town. And I want to say thanks for not only that exchange, but for your opening remarks that addressed his commitment to service to our great country. I want to discuss some of the budget requests and you're asking for $89 million for security, including 24/7 protection, additional protective personnel, and cybersecurity enhancements. Justice Barrett, can you briefly and broadly express how the change in the threat environment has necessitated that higher level of investment by the Congress?
Amy Coney Barrett
I think it's because, you know, when I was a law clerk, Justice Scalia did not have protection all the time. Justice Kagan mentioned she didn't have it when she began. But now the threats are constant and they are always there. And so it's necessary now in daily activities. Unfortunately, I honestly feel like if for the sake of my privacy, I wish it weren't so.
But it's necessary for protection in daily activities to have a security detail. And frankly, our detail, one reason for our longer-term plan to increase the size of our details to come closer to cabinet-level officials is burnout and exhaustion. A detail of four to eight people, when they have to monitor around the clock, when they drop me off, I think I might have been mentioning this in our meeting on March 5th, when they drop me off at 11 o'clock at night and then it's the same team that has to come back the next morning, I mean, it's just a lot of hours.
Elena Kagan
Thank you. Your feedback then and now is very constructive for this committee.
May I add just a bit? Of course. You know, this began in part because of Congress. And it began in about 2016, I think, was when Justice Scalia died. And he died in a place in Texas and there were no security people in the immediate area.
I think the nearest were a couple of hours away, the nearest marshals. And we're very grateful because Congressman Issa and Congressman Cummings came to visit the court. And they were doing an investigation, you mentioned, of the Secret Service.
And they were doing one at the time. And that required that they look at different, um, institutions and departments, security personnel. And they came over to the court and they said the Chief Justice, to the Chief Justice, this was how the Chief described it to us. They said, kind of like, we think you're crazy, you know, that, that you have less security than the director of the Office of Personnel Management does. And we think that you have to do better.
And that was really the start when Congressman Issa and Congressman Cummings came to the Chief Justice and the Chief Justice reported to us. And, you know, we were a little bit like, do we really, because it's easier living life without security than living life with security. But we started, and we started slowly, incrementally, carefully, making sure that we balanced all the necessary factors. Then, of course, the, the Dobbs leak happened, and that really increased the urgency of the entire thing. But we've been working on this now for about a decade and, and actually, I think, are grateful to Congress for coming to us and saying you have to up your game in this area.
Nick LaLota
And there's still more work to do in this area. I think that both sides of the aisle take your security seriously. Justice Kagan, you mentioned earlier in your testimony the wanting to decrease your reliance on the US Marshals and increase your reliance on your own, uh, court police. Can you describe, um, the impetus behind that, uh, dichotomy?
Elena Kagan
Yeah, nothing against the US Marshals, um, uh, who do a terrific job. But I think this allows us to, uh, to, you know, we, when, whenever we make, have to make a policy decision about how to use our security personnel, it's our policy decision. We don't have to convince anybody else. And, um, and what several members have suggested, I think is absolutely true, that you want a completely stable workforce. So people who are providing you with security really know you.
And to the extent that we're relying on the Marshal Service, they're coming, they're going, they have other responsibilities. They probably won't be committed to an individual justice or to the court full-time.
Nick LaLota
I think I agree with your point. Uh, you should have a separation of powers in your own autonomy, in your own security, and we should want to empower you to do that. Very briefly, um, in the world of finite budgeting, as you do more of one thing, you by necessity often do less of one thing. And we're right to consider doing more with respect to your security. Are we missing something when we do that?
Are we doing something less when we do more with the security? Are you, um, doing less work, are you delivering less opinions, are, are we somehow degrading your ability to deliver justice in other areas?
Speaker 40
I think we carefully steward our resources and I think our budget reflects the needs that we have to continue fulfilling our constitutional mission.
Thank you. Appreciate you being here. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Steve Womack
Thank you, sir. And now, uh, we recognize, like the wedding feast at Cana, we save the best for last in, in our Cardinal Womack.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Former head of this committee. And, uh, what a joy it is to have our justices in front of us this morning. I've been around these precincts for a while now.
I remember back in the day when it was Justice Kennedy and, uh, Justice Breyer that were here. You two have done very well today, but not quite as entertaining as those two guys. I, I can promise you that. Um, and let me also acknowledge a couple of familiar faces in the crowd, Judge Dow, George Everly, who is back at the court now, and the great work that they do. Um, uh, we've had terrific relationships down through the years and that has not changed with the court.
And so I commend you for that and for this front row of people who obviously, um, are your support staff and help this court continue its important mission. I don't have any budget-related questions. But in my remaining time, I'm going to give you an opportunity to speak to the rest of the people in this room.
When I came in, and I came in late this morning, there was a line of people outside this door, and I'm sure that line is probably still there. And I was taken aback by how young these people look. So if you look beyond the front row in this room this morning, you will see the faces of young people from all walks of life who all to me look like they're at least under 25 years of age. And they are driven here for different reasons. I'm going to give you both an opportunity in the remaining time I have, three minutes, to speak to the hearts and minds of these young people who one day could be sitting exactly where you're sitting today and give them hope that what we do in this country is and what you do in the court is part of our genius as a country.
And Justice Kagan, I'm going to let you go first. You have these young people's complete attention.
Elena Kagan
You're raising the bar here. Thank you so much, Congressman Womack, for that wonderful opportunity. I think I would say to the young people in this audience and the young people everywhere what is just true of our democracy, that it rests in their hands. And how we function as a country going forward is in large measure up to them. And that they should take all the opportunities that they can to learn about our country and to learn about its history and to learn about our governmental institutions and then to figure out how they can do better and leave the world a better place than they found it.
And I think that I am optimistic that this generation of people will do just that.
Amy Coney Barrett
Hear, hear, I agree with everything Justice Kagan said. And I would add that I am heartened that so many young people are here and waiting in the line to want to see this hearing because I think it shows engagement in our democratic process. And I think what they have seen is a really constructive bipartisan effort in this hearing to address these issues. And I hope they see that in the court's work. We work hard to disagree well when we disagree, and we agree a lot of the time.
And I think that kind of constructive engagement and not just throwing your hands up and saying I'm not going to deal with people with whom I disagree is what we need to move forward.
Speaker 41
Great advice. Thank you for the great courtesies you've extended. Yes, Al.
Seems to me that's a 9-0 decision.
Steve Womack
That's a 9-0, and that's pretty rare, but that's a 9-0 decision. Thank you for the many courtesies you and your teams have extended to my office and to this committee, and we respect the work of the court and continued best wishes. I yield back.
David Joyce
I will admit that Judge Dow is getting off awfully easy today, but that's for another day. The ranking member of the full committee has asked for a moment to address something that she didn't get to in her statement.
Rosa DeLauro
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to say to Mr. Womack, what is a very the gravitas of what you've asked and the responses are really heartening and should be to all of us and mostly including our young people who are today who are hungry to be engaged and involved. My question goes back to something I was talking about. And Justice Kagan, it was just a couple years ago, this has to do with the you said the Supreme Court should consider an independent enforcement mechanism for its ethics code involving a panel of respected federal judges. Do you still support that?
Elena Kagan
You know, I personally do. I think that we would be better off with an enforcement mechanism. And I think, you know, that's not to say I think that my colleagues are taking this code incredibly seriously. I understand that we are all, you know, making every effort and I think successful efforts to live by it. But if nothing else for public confidence's sake, an enforcement mechanism can, you know, also make clear that not every accusation, not every charge has anything to it and can make clear, this is off base, this is wrong, there's nothing here.
But I think that it would be a good thing to do. As you say, I think it's really important that it come from the judiciary itself. There are real complexities about how that would be done, but I've not changed my mind.
Amy Coney Barrett
I'm less certain. I mean, I'm certainly fully committed to the code as are all of our colleagues, but because of some of the complexities that Justice Kagan identified, I'm just not quite sure. The judiciary moves slowly, the court moves slowly, we have turtles everywhere because of that. And I think that if we had an enforceable body to enforce the code, it would have to come from within the judiciary. And I just think it's a question of who selects the judges, how is the panel comprised, there's just a lot of complexities.
Rosa DeLauro
Well, there's lots of integrity with regard to the court, there's no doubt about that, but a mechanism, every other body has that, we have a committee, all the federal courts do, it's just the Supreme Court that doesn't and it should come from the judiciary. And my hope is that that be for the integrity of the court. We're all under real fire these days and that includes the court. I think we have to demonstrate at every turn that we are understanding that of the the kind of morality that we need to have and that we need to demonstrate to the public about how important we take the roles that we have and that we're not somehow abridging the system or abusing the system. Thank you very, very much.
David Joyce
With that, our time has concluded. I would like to thank both Justice Kagan and Justice Coney Barrett for their being here today and for your answers. There may be some members of this panel who would also like to submit questions for the record. Please submit any questions for the record to the subcommittee staff within seven days. This subcommittee stands adjourned.