The House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan bill increasing U.S. Secret Service (USSS) protections for major presidential and vice presidential candidates after two foiled assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.
It passed with an overwhelming unanimous 405 to 0 vote, a rare show of bipartisanship in Congress.
The legislation was introduced by Reps. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., in response to the July 13 shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
A 20-year-old gunman was able to open fire on the rally from a rooftop just outside the rally perimeter, killing one attendee and injuring Trump and two others.
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Weeks later, USSS agents arrested a man near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course who had been waiting for the ex-president during a game on Sunday with an SKS rifle.
If passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Biden, the bill would mandate a comprehensive review of USSS protective standards and impose uniform standards for the security of presidents, vice presidents and major White House candidates.
“Regardless of how every American feels, regardless of how every American intends to vote, it is the right of the American people to determine the outcome of this election. The idea that our election could be decided by an assassin’s bullet should shake the conscience of our nation, and it requires swift action by the federal government,” Lawler said during debate on the bill Thursday.
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“It is shocking that it took a second assassination attempt for Donald Trump to get the same level of protective detail from the Secret Service as the president of the United States.”
Progressive Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said he is backing the bill but argued it would be meaningless without stronger firearm laws.
“I support this legislation because the Secret Service must be able to protect our highest elected officials and candidates. But this legislation will do nothing to make the rest of us any safer, or change the fact that gun violence continues to take the lives of more than 100 Americans every single day,” Nadler said.
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, pushed back on Nadler’s comments and accused him of painting the assassination attempts as “Republicans’ fault.”
“Next thing they’re going to say is, oh, some crazy guy on the left tries to assassinate President Trump, and it’s President Trump’s fault. Oh, wait a minute. They said that too. This is ridiculous,” Jordan said.
It is not immediately clear how the bill would classify “major” candidates.
Following the first attempt against Trump, Biden extended heightened USSS protection to the ex-president, who he was still running against at the time before dropping out of the race.
He also granted a request by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then running as a third-party candidate, for USSS protection.
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