Kagan and Barrett Testify Before Congress, Warning of Rising Threats

Summary

For the first time since 2019, two sitting Supreme Court justices sat before Congress and asked for money to keep themselves alive. Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett appeared Tuesday before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, with Kagan warning that police expect threats against the justices to climb nearly 40 percent this year alone. The two make for an unusual pairing politically, but they sat shoulder to shoulder in what every account described as a collegial hearing, united by a shared vulnerability that transcends ideology. Kagan told lawmakers that threats have "come very close," a phrase that landed with more weight than most congressional testimony manages. The justices are requesting millions in additional funding for enhanced protection, though the specific dollar figure varied slightly across the hearing's publicly reported details. The security concerns come as the Court has taken on an outsized role in settling the country's most combustible policy fights, from abortion to presidential immunity, making the nine justices targets in ways their predecessors rarely were. The Atlantic's coverage of the same Court focused on a separate, sharper grievance: that the majority is refusing to engage with evidence of racial discrimination in a pending case, a reminder that the institution asking Congress for protection is simultaneously drawing intense criticism for its jurisprudence.