The House has passed a bill to direct the Secret Service to extend presidential-level protection to major presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The bill passed unanimously Friday, 405-0, five days after the second assassination attempt on GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“Let the American people decide who will be president — not an assassin and not an assassin’s bullet,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, New York Republican and lead sponsor of the bill.
Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe said Mr. Trump had the “highest level” of security on Sunday when a would-be assassin perched outside the former president’s West Palm Beach, Florida, golf club with an SKS-style rifle. The perpetrator, Ryan Routh, was spotted and stopped by a Secret Service agent before getting off a shot.
It was a different outcome than the first attempt on Mr. Trump’s life two months ago in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Thomas Crooks fired eight rounds — one bullet striking the former president in the ear — before a Secret Service sniper killed the gunman.
“On July 13, the difference between an attempted assassination and a completed assassination was not the skill of the Secret Service. It was luck,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, who partnered with Mr. Lawler on the enhanced protection bill.
“If the gunman had been slightly more precise in his shooting or if the former president had moved ever so slightly to his right, the former president would have been killed,” the New York Democrat said. “The fact that America stood inches and seconds away from a national crisis is itself a crisis.”
The bill is short and simple. It says the Secret Service director “shall apply the same standards for determining the number of agents required to protect presidents, vice presidents, and major presidential and vice presidential candidates.”
President Biden ordered “the highest levels of protection” for Mr. Trump — as well as for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee — after the Butler shooting, Mr. Rowe said. The additional security assets, which included counter snipers, counter surveillance agents and drones, were in place on Sunday.
The Secret Service also told members of the bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempts during a closed-door briefing this week that Mr. Trump effectively has the same level of protection as if he were a sitting president, minus a complement of communications and technology assets deployed to only the commander in chief.
Mr. Rowe confirmed that during a Friday news conference, saying Mr. Trump is “getting everything that the current president has with respect to Secret Service assets.”
The legislation, therefore, may not require the Secret Service to make additional changes, except for the vice presidential candidates. Mr. Rowe said Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, the GOP vice presidential nominee, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, were previously elevated to “high levels of Secret Service protection,” slightly different phrasing than the “highest levels” that he said were provided to Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris.
The bill also requires the director to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the agency’s protection of those top-level detailees and report its findings and any recommendations for improvements to Congress within 180 days.
“It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that our elections are free, fair and are decided by the American people at the ballot box and that any attempt either by a foreign government or by a fellow citizen to undermine that by trying to assassinate a political candidate must be stopped at all costs,” Mr. Lawler said.
Despite the unanimous bipartisan support for the bill, the floor debate took a brief partisan turn when the House Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Jerry Nadler of New York, accused Republicans of using the bill “to distract from the common denominator in every successful assassination of a U.S. president” — the use of a gun.
“The fact is that the work of the Secret Service is made infinitely more difficult by our lax gun laws,” he said. “But this Congress, the Republican majority has repeatedly sought to further weaken our gun laws, endangering our children, our law enforcement officers, our communities and even their own presidential candidate.”
Mr. Nadler said he supports the legislation to enhance protection of the highest elected officials and candidates, but it “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.”
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, responded aghast.
“So let me get this straight: Some crazy guy on the left tries to assassinate President Trump and it’s Republicans’ fault?” he said. “This is ridiculous.”
Mr. Jordan said he hadn’t planned to comment on the bill, wanting Mr. Lawler, whose remarks were “totally bipartisan,” to lead the debate, but he couldn’t let the Democratic attack go unnoted.
“They cannot help themselves,” he said.
Senate Republicans have introduced similar legislation, but the fate is uncertain with lawmakers facing time constraints on their calendar.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.