Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn introduced a bill on Wednesday calling for increased security for U.S. Supreme Court Justices and their family members following a leak regarding a pending court ruling that could overturn Roe v. Wade.
Cornyn’s bill, known as the “Supreme Court Police Parity Act,” comes following potential threats and a growing number of protests against conservative justices following the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion on the pending abortion-rights case.
“It’s not just an attack against the independence of the judiciary. This risks violence against members of the Supreme Court and their families,” Cornyn said in a statement on Thursday.
After this week's SCOTUS leak, a focus has been placed on the security of the Justice’s families who could face threats to their safety.
I introduced a bill to ensure Justices and their families are protected from those who seek to harm them.
https://t.co/BGfsSApCsn— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) May 5, 2022
“I introduced a piece of legislation to enhance the authorities of the Supreme Court law enforcement agencies to provide protective details for the judges and their families, who’ve already been threatened with violence,” he added.
The senator added that threats against justices are an attempt to intimidate and threaten those serving in the nation’s highest court.
“Because we deal in these matters on a daily basis, to make that kind of threat to the Supreme Court is an attempt to intimidate the Justices and a threat to judicial independence,” he added.
The bill would provide Supreme Court justices and family members with 24-hour security protection.
In addition, Cornyn’s legislation would extend arrest authority to the Supreme Court Police when individuals interfere with the performance of a justice’s official duties and create a criminal penalty for those who obstruct or impede Supreme Court Police in the performance of its functions.
“The events of the past week have intensified the focus on Supreme Court Justices’ families, who are unfortunately facing threats to their safety in today’s increasingly polarized political climate,” Cornyn said. “We must act to ensure Justices and their families are protected from those who wish to cause them harm by extending Supreme Court police security to family members.”
The new legislation also comes as a liberal group is reportedly planning protests at the homes of six conservative justices next week.
The group Ruth Sent Us listed the street names where each justice supposedly lives with their families: Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.
“If you’d like to join or lead a peaceful protest, let us know,” the activist group said, adding in another message, “Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics.”
The leak was first published by Politico on Monday evening.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
The leaked draft also shows that Alito called Roe wrong from the start.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” Alito presented in the opinion draft.
