The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to strengthen U.S. Secret Service (USSS) protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates following two thwarted assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.
The bill passed by an overwhelming 405-0 vote, a rare display of bipartisanship in Congress.
The bill was introduced by Reps. Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, and Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, in response to the July 13 shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
A 20-year-old gunman opened fire on the rally from a rooftop just outside the rally's perimeter, killing one attendee and wounding President Trump and two others.
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Former President Donald Trump was injured in an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, and a second assassination attempt occurred a few weeks later. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A few weeks later, USSS agents arrested a man near Trump's West Palm Beach golf course who had been waiting for the former president with an SKS rifle during a Sunday game.
If the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law by President Biden, it would mandate a comprehensive review of USSS protection standards and impose uniform standards on security for the president, vice president and major White House nominees.
“Regardless of how any individual American feels or how they intend to vote, it is the right of the American people to determine the outcome of this election. The idea that an election could be decided by an assassin's bullet shocks our American conscience and calls for swift action from the federal government,” Lawler said during the bill's debate on Thursday.
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Rep. Mike Lawler of New York is the lead Republican sponsor of the bill. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“It's shocking that it took two assassination attempts for Donald Trump to receive the same level of protection from the Secret Service as the President of the United States.”
Progressive Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York) supported the bill but said it would be meaningless without stronger gun control measures.
“I support this bill because the Secret Service must be able to protect our highest-ranking office holders and candidates, but it does nothing to make any of us any safer, nor does it change the fact that gun violence continues to take the lives of more than 100 Americans every day,” Nadler said.
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pushed back against Nadler's remarks, accusing him of making the assassination attempt “a Republican thing.”
“Next they say, oh, some crazy guy on the left is trying to assassinate President Trump and it's President Trump's fault. Oh, wait a minute, they said that too. This is ridiculous,” Jordan said.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York is leading the bill. (Getty)
It was not immediately clear how the bill would classify “major” candidates.
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Following his first attempt against Trump, Biden extended enhanced USSS protections to the former president, who was still in conflict at the time but had since dropped out of the race.
He also granted a request for USSS protection from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was running as a third-party candidate at the time.
