A bill to strengthen U.S. Secret Service protection for presidential candidates unanimously passed in the Senate a week after a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
The bill, H.R.9106, also known as the Enhanced Presidential Security Act of 2024, was introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on July 23, 2024, shortly after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
This vote comes days after the House unanimously passed the bill in a 405-0 vote.
“My bill with @RepRitchie to provide for enhanced Secret Service protection for @realDonaldTrump and @VP has passed the Senate unanimously, after passing the House 405-0,” Lawler wrote in a post on X. “It’s now headed to @POTUS for signature. Elections should be decided at the ballot box, not by an assassin.”
Under the bill, the “Director of the United States Secret Service” would “apply the same standards for determining” how many agents are needed to protect the president and vice president, as well as presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The bill would also require a “comprehensive review of the provision of protection by the Secret Service for Presidents, Vice Presidents, former Presidents, and major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates,” and the Secret Service would submit a report “to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate” with “the findings from such reviews,” as well as recommendations on how protection could be improved.
The passage of the bill comes subsequent to Ryan Wesley Routh being apprehended after the Secret Service spotted the barrel of his AK-style rifle through a fence while he was hiding in the bushes near Trump International Golf Course West Palm Beach on September 15, where Trump had been playing golf.
