Among all the troublemaking members House Republican leaders have to deal with, Rep. Jen Kiggans isn’t on their list of problem children. That might be changing.

A former Navy helicopter pilot, nurse practitioner and mother of four, the 54-year-old Virginian is seen in the Republican Conference as something of a model member, hailing from one of the toughest swing districts in the country. She is viewed by her peers as personable and a team player. Of all the places Mike Johnson might have gone on the eve of the 2024 elections, the speaker chose to spend time with Kiggans — a strong show of leadership support for a freshman.

But Kiggans, now in her second term, has decided to stick her neck out on what’s shaping up to be one of the most politically explosive policy fights of the fall: the battle over extending boosted Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that are due to expire on Dec. 31. Congressional budget forecasters are predicting major premium hikes if the subsidies sunset, which would force millions of people to drop health insurance coverage.

Twelve Republicans and seven Democrats are backing legislation that would enact a one-year extension of the subsidies, which are implemented in the form of enhanced tax credits. Kiggans is the lead sponsor and the GOP face of the effort.

In an interview, she called an extension good politics — and good for her constituents.

“In six weeks or so, people will get a notice that their health care premiums are going to go up by thousands of dollars,” said Kiggans. “And at the end of the year … for people that either have this type of insurance and work in small businesses, are self-employed, you know, I worry about their access to health care.”

The latest Capitol Hill clash over preserving health care policies enacted by Democrats, however, is shaping up to be a central battle in government funding negotiations ahead of a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline — and driving a rift inside the GOP in ways that echo party infighting over scaling back Medicaid in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” The dispute is also now pitting centrists like Kiggans against conservatives who have fought for years to undo the Affordable Care Act. And it carries major political stakes for Republicans as they gear up for their fight to keep control of the House next year.

The Democrats’ 2010 health law first provided for tax credits to help make premiums more affordable under the new insurance plans. But the 2021 Covid relief package supercharged those credits, making them more generous for people with lower incomes but also accessible to individuals making up to $600,000 a year. It’s that “enhanced” version of the credits that will expire at the end of the 2025 without congressional action.

One senior House Republican, granted anonymity to share their private view of Kiggans’ support for the subsidies, suggested she’ll be given latitude by her colleagues and leadership to follow her instincts on the credits’ fate: “Kiggans does her homework, and she understands her base or constituency and what needs to be done.”

Still, she’s finding herself caught in the middle of warring factions that could test the positive relationships she’s built during her short time in office, while also putting her political future at risk.

She’s going up against a swath of hard-liners who in the coming days plan to ramp up their coordinated campaign against any extension, in part by arguing that the subsidies are used to cover abortions. Conservatives also say the tax credits are too expensive, and they are generally loath to support any policy tied to the Affordable Care Act.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview Thursday it would be “awful” if Johnson capitulates to demands from moderates like Kiggans to extend the enhanced ACA credits. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-line contingent, called the subsidies “free giveaways to insurance companies.”

Mindful of the intraparty fissures around this issue, Johnson has so far been careful not to say whether he endorses an extension, and certainly isn’t tying it to a government funding package needed to avert a shutdown before Oct. 1. Republicans who support Kiggans’ crusade privately believe their best bet for victory is securing the extension in a second funding measure at the end of the year, but Democrats are making this linkage a condition of their support for the immediate stopgap spending measure.

“There’s a range of opinion on it,” Johnson said in a brief interview earlier this month. “It doesn’t expire until the end of the year, so we have time to figure it out.”

Kiggans has a track record of breaking with her party on some big issues but not tanking legislation to gain leverage. For instance, she was among the most vocal critics of the GOP megabill’s targeting of clean energy tax credits that are benefitting her district, but she still voted for the new law. She said this past week she didn’t plan to shut down the government to get her way on the ACA tax credits, either.

“I represent a big military district,” she explained, “and people who rely on those federal paychecks.”

But Democrats, who see Kiggans’ seat as a prime pick-up opportunity in 2026, accuse her of being duplicitous.

“Jen Kiggans cast a decisive vote to rip away health care from 350,000 Virginians, and just this week three health care clinics in the Commonwealth were forced to shutter as a direct result of her vote,” said Eli Cousin, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in a statement that referred to Kiggans’ vote for the GOP megabill.

“Kiggans wants to trick voters before she is up for reelection, then sell them out right after,” Cousin added. “She is everything wrong with Washington politicians.”

Kiggans is working to thread the needle. She said she agrees with fellow Republicans that the credits are expensive and need to expire eventually. But she also made the case that her party needs to create “a longer runway” to discuss how to soften the blow of phasing out the enhanced credits completely.

“It’s time to end these tax credits, but when it comes to health care, it’s not quite as easy as letting them expire, especially when it’s something at the end of the calendar year,” Kiggans said. “And I’m not alone. There’s people on both sides of the aisle that feel the same way. And these are common-sense members of Congress that care about health care.”

Democratic co-sponsors of her bill include Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, the co-chairs of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. Among the Republican supporters are Reps. David Valadao of California, Juan Ciscomani of Arizona and Mike Lawler of New York — some of the most endangered incumbents of the election cycle.

But senior House Republicans have questioned the strategy Kiggans and her group is pursuing, according to three people granted anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations. These Republicans are, in particular, critical of the rollout of her bill, which did not include any of the reforms Kiggans acknowledged are needed to the larger program.

This “clean” extension, many in the GOP feel, could put Republicans in a tough spot, including Kiggans’ fellow frontliners who have not signed onto her effort.

“Full credits with high wage earners is too far for most Republicans,” said one of the senior House GOP Republicans, referring to how Kiggans’ bill would fully extend the premium tax credit for one year rather than to put new income limits on an extension, as some Republicans have suggested doing.

Some vulnerable GOP incumbents who haven’t yet signed onto Kiggans’ bill also acknowledged an income cap and other reforms will likely be part of any compromise.

“We want to make sure that affordability is maintained as best as possible for people,” Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) said in an interview, while adding, “I know there are some concerns that some have expressed about high-income individuals being eligible.”

Kiggans said the value of her one-year extension bill is that it would, indeed, force a discussion about how to either continue the subsidies responsibly or wind them down in a thoughtful way. She advocated for a scenario where members could come to the table and hash out a long-term solution, recalling the consensus-building exercise that took place around making changes to Medicaid as part of the megabill.

“That took a lot of meetings, a lot of late nights, a lot of discussions with people who happen to have skin in the game,” said Kiggans.

There are plenty of Republicans who believe Kiggans should stay the course and leadership should follow, warning an expiration of the premium tax credits could cost the GOP dearly in the midterms.

A July poll by veteran GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio found that Republicans have an “opportunity to overcome a current generic ballot deficit” in 2026 if they allow an extension. Letting them expire, according to that same survey, would cause an expected three-point deficit for a generic Republican to plunge to 15.

Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that “everybody’s voice is being heard” on whether to extend the ACA subsidies.

“I think we’re having internal discussions now about, kind of, where we are as a conference and what’s feasible and what’s not feasible,” Hudson said in a brief interview last week. “I’ll wait and see how that develops before I say anything publicly.”

Kiggans insisted her party can’t afford to wait.

“Republicans need to lead on this issue,” she said. “And we can.”

Cassandra Dumay and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Saying he was seeking “a new challenge,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday he won’t run for reelection in 2026.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” McCaul told host Martha Raddatz: “I’m going to serve the remainder of my term. But I’m looking for a new challenge in the same space that would be national security, foreign policy, but just in a different realm. “

McCaul, the former chair of the Homeland Security and Foreign Relations Committee, added: “I want to continue to serve the people of this country in national security and foreign policy and do what I’ve done the last two decades — make America stronger and the world safer.”

Raddatz responded: “Well, that’s a good plan. They’ll miss you on the Hill. You got a ways to go. Thanks for joining us this morning.”

McCaul subsequently posted the clip on X and added: “It has been the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of central Texas and to chair the prestigious Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committees. My father’s service in World War II inspired me to pursue a life of public service, with a focus on defending our great nation against global threats, and I have been proud to carry out that mission in Congress for more than two decades. I am ready for a new challenge in 2027 and look forward to continuing to serve my country in the national security and foreign policy realm.”

McCaul, age 63, was first elected in 2004. He drew 63.6 percent of the vote in his last reelection race in 2024.

Most of McCaul’s ABC appearance was spent discussing foreign policy and current international crises. He said, for instance, that he was worried that the deployment of Russian drones over Poland’s airspace last week represented an “escalation” of tensions in Europe.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in recent times,” he said. “And so, what I’m concerned about is that the escalation here and the temperature rising, we got to be very careful not to be on the precipice of a World War III.”

McCaul also said he expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to continue to cause trouble, at least to a point.

“I think he’ll continue to be provocative and saber-rattle. I don’t think he would use nuclear weapons. I think China put a red line,” McCaul told Raddatz.

Republicans claim the GOP megabill, coupled with President Donald Trump’s tariff and immigration policies, will “unleash economic growth.” Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper says not so much.

The Congressional Budget Office’s new economic estimates released Friday predict that over the next three years, policies implemented this year by Trump and the Republican-led Congress will have little effect on growth before the 2028 election.

That’s because Trump’s tariff policies and crackdown on immigration are estimated to cool the economy this year, more than outweighing any growth spurred by the tax and spending package Republicans turned into law this summer.

By next year, CBO expects that balance to change some, as the effects of the megabill begin to outweigh the negative economic impact of tariffs and immigration policy, pushing GDP growth higher than previously predicted.

Then, in the lead-up to the 2028 presidential election, the combination of the GOP policies are estimated to be mostly a wash for economic growth.

In 2027 and 2028, the GOP megabill’s boost to demand will wane as reduced immigration hits the labor force, acting “as a drag on growth,” the budget office predicts. Higher tariffs, however, will partially offset that hit, driving increased domestic production.

The result: As voters head to the polls in November 2028, the level of real GDP will be just 0.1 percent higher than predicted before Trump took office.

Liberal activists are ratcheting up pressure behind the scenes on congressional Democrats to play hardball with Republicans over a looming government shutdown — and party leaders appear to be heeding their call for now.

The progressive group MoveOn urged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a private letter that they should “hold the line” and withhold their votes to keep the government open unless GOP lawmakers make concessions on health care policy. The memo, sent Monday, was shared first with POLITICO.

It is part of a growing chorus among liberals to exact some concessions from congressional Republicans out of the looming government deadline.

On Thursday, Democrats quietly started to unite around a strategy ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline, according to one top lawmaker: Any deal with Republicans must include health provisions like the extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire later this year.

“Democrats have the leverage to hold the line and refuse support for any funding bill that doesn’t reverse Republicans’ massive health care cuts,” wrote MoveOn’s civic action executive director Katie Bethell in the group’s letter. “Now is the time to use that leverage, and when you do, the grassroots base — including millions of MoveOn members — will have your back.”

On Thursday, Schumer said House and Senate Democrats are in “total agreement” and “what the Republicans are proposing is not good enough for the American people, and not good enough to get our votes.” Jeffries said, “We are together in defense of the health care of the American people.”

Democrats have been tussling for months over the best approach to take on President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress, and the progressive base has signaled that it wants its leadership to adopt a more aggressive posture. On Sunday, the influential liberal commentator Ezra Klein leaned into a forceful approach, arguing in an essay read by many Democrats on the Hill that the party can either join “Republicans to fund a government that President Trump is turning into a tool of authoritarian takeover and vengeance or shut the government down.”

GOP fiscal hawks are adamantly opposed to extending the ACA insurance subsidies amid concerns about the ballooning deficit, though some Republicans acknowledge a deal may develop later this year. House Ways and Means Republicans debated the controversial topic Wednesday at a “tense” meeting.

Progressives are watching Schumer’s moves closely after another government funding showdown earlier this year. In March, Schumer came under fire from liberal activists and House Democrats when he voted to advance a Republican bill to avoid a shutdown.

At the time, Schumer made the case that it was the best of two bad decisions intended to avoid handing over more power to Trump and his then-special government employee Elon Musk. Schumer’s critics argued that he failed to use the little leverage his party had.

MoveOn staff said that it is looking for Democrats to obtain concessions that would scale back Medicaid changes in Trump’s megabill and extend the ACA insurance subsidies — both liberal policy priorities.

Spokespeople for Schumer and Jeffries’ office declined to comment.

President Donald Trump dismissed congressional Democrats’ demands ahead of a looming shutdown deadline in a Fox News interview Friday, casting doubt on whether a deal to keep the government open is even possible.

“There is something wrong with them,” Trump said about Democrats in a rare in-studio “Fox and Friends” interview. “If you gave them every dream right now … they want to give away money to this or that and destroy the country. If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it.”

“Don’t even bother dealing with them,” he added. “We will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together for the first time in a long time.”

Lawmakers have until midnight on Sept. 30 to reach a funding deal. GOP congressional leaders are eyeing a “clean” stopgap that would keep current spending levels in place, with a few exceptions, until late November.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said this week that Democrats will not vote for any such bill absent bipartisan negotiations. Both leaders have said that health care concessions, such as extending soon-to-expire insurance subsidies or restoring Medicaid cuts made in the GOP megabill, are essential to a deal.

Democrats have say in the matter because any funding deal will need 60 votes in the Senate, where the GOP has a 52-vote majority. But Trump on Friday suggested he was not aware of the mathematics.

“We have to get Republican votes. That’s all,” Trump claimed. Pressed about the 60-vote threshold, Trump responded: “No. We’re gonna do a — probably a continuing resolution, or we’re gonna do something. So we’re gonna do something,” he said.

“Here is the problem,” Trump quickly added, “the Democrats have: They’re sick. There is something wrong with them. Schumer is at end of the rope.”

Trump’s comments came after The Associated Press published an interview Friday with Schumer where he reiterated that Democrats would not support a clean GOP-led stopgap without securing health care wins.

The New York Democrat also said he was less reticent about sparking a shutdown now than he was in March, when he warned that a shutdown would only empower Trump to take more control of the federal bureaucracy.

Now, he said, “It will get worse with or without [a shutdown], because Trump is lawless.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s title.

Hakeem Jeffries is presenting himself as a hard-charging leader of his party, pushing a crash blue-state redistricting program to counter President Donald Trump’s moves to add Republican seats in Texas, Missouri and elsewhere.

But behind the scenes, the House minority leader is encountering the limits of his power — and the credibility of Democrats’ counterattack. Just this week, some Illinois lawmakers sent Jeffries a clear message they were not interested in pursuing a redraw that could dilute their districts with additional GOP votes. And in his home state of New York, state and party officials have all but rejected his suggestion they draw a new map, saying it’s not legally possible ahead of the midterms.

Jeffries privately met with members of the Illinois delegation on Tuesday to hear out their redistricting concerns, according to five people granted anonymity to share details of the discussion. Jeffries told them to keep all of their options open but acknowledged every Democratic member of the congressional delegation would need to buy in to a redraw before it could move forward, the people said.

After a post-2020 Census revision, only three of the state’s 17 congressional districts are represented by Republicans. But up to four Democratic incumbents could face tougher races if those GOP-held seats were made bluer, said Rep. Robin Kelly, a former chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois.

“We have to look out and protect who we have because we fought hard to get them in,” Kelly said in an interview. “I’m not a mapmaker, but it seems like it will be very difficult.”

“Everyone is talking about it,” she added, when asked if she had registered her concerns to Jeffries or Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Some in the party believe that because four incumbent Illinois Democrats are exiting, including Kelly, there might be some wiggle room to redraw lines without undue disruption. But Rep. Lauren Underwood, who is seeking reelection in one of those potentially marginal districts, was blunt: “I don’t think redistricting is happening in Illinois,” she said. “Talking about it and it happening are two different things. We get on the ballot in six weeks.”

The internal pushback is the latest complication Jeffries faces in delivering the Democratic base a fight against Trump’s majority-protection play — and delivering himself the House gavel in the midterms.

Jeffries has worked to put himself at the forefront of the nationwide map fight, though his work has primarily played out behind the scenes through meetings with his members and calls to blue-state governors. He has publicly championed state Democrats’ resistance to the GOP redraw in Texas and privately discussed potential counterattacks with Pritzker and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. He has tapped his donor network to help bankroll Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ballot measure that would enable a new map in California, where Democrats hope to add five more seats to offset potential GOP gains in Texas.

“Republicans were apparently operating under the misguided notion that we were going to let them get away with trying to rig the midterm elections without a forceful response. They were badly mistaken,” Jeffries told reporters last week. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to work out well for them.”

John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said Jeffries has been a “true leader” amid a “very dramatic process.”

“I think it’s been really difficult and a yeoman’s task to try and get members all on the same page when many of them have their own vested interests, but also many of them just genuinely need a deeper understanding of a very complicated topic,” he said.

But Jeffries is not Trump, a dominant leader who can snap his fingers and grind his intraparty critics into submission. The White House has mounted a maximalist pressure campaign, hauling reticent state Republicans to Washington and dispatching top aides and even Vice President JD Vance to strong-arm GOP governors and lawmakers.

Jeffries is in a much more precarious position. Just two-and-a-half years into his party’s top House leadership job, he still has to be mindful of the wishes of the lawmakers who elected him, even as a restless Democratic base pushes party leaders to fight Trump and Republicans on all fronts.

He has also been limited by legal guardrails Democrats put up in some blue states to restrict gerrymandering — laws that have now left the party at a disadvantage in what’s becoming a tit-for-tat war. Republican-controlled states will likely be able to draw more Democrats out of their seats than Democrats will be able to target GOP lawmakers in blue states.

That poses a threat to Jeffries’ aspirations of becoming speaker in 2027. Yet the New Yorker has stuck to his low-key, conciliatory leadership style, with Democrats pointing to the deference he’s given to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, state congressional delegations and state-level officials in handling the process.

State legislative leaders in Illinois have been hesitant to embrace redistricting even as Pritzker told reporters he’s “pledged” to Jeffries “that I’ll do everything I can to make sure that Democrats win the Congress in 2026.” As of Thursday, Jeffries had not contacted the Illinois House or Senate leaders about proceeding. In Maryland, top Democrats have yet to make any significant moves. And not all in the party are comfortable with a scorched-earth redistricting strategy.

“They’re going low,” said Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) of Republicans. “We’ve got to fight — I agree with that — but it’s wrong. So two wrongs don’t make it right.” Jackson added he would support Democratic leaders’ ultimate decision on redistricting in Illinois.

In New York, Jeffries’ team failed to get immediate action from Democratic state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul to redraw House lines in time for next year’s elections. Jeffries and the governor were in contact, and Hochul in August embraced gerrymandering in response to Texas’ actions. But a quasi-independent commission and a prohibition against partisan redistricting has been enshrined by voters in the New York constitution. Any changes would require an amendment, which takes at least two years to finalize.

The efforts by Jeffries and his advisers frustrated New York Democrats, who had scant options to quickly redraw the state’s House map. It didn’t help matters that the Brooklyn Democrat’s team provided little guidance.

“Jeffries’ people were the main people pushing for it,” said a Democratic state legislative aide close to the process who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal discussions. “They were pushing Hochul with no real clear understanding of what to do.”

Jeffries’ push comes as he navigates far broader political headwinds. He’s being pummeled by progressives at home for not backing democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race, while facing pressure on the Hill to show whatever backbone the minority party can muster in the next big fight over government funding.

“He’s really kind of straddled both worlds here: He clearly, fully embraced this redistricting fight, while also being one of the holdouts in endorsing the Democratic nominee for mayor of the biggest city in his state,” said Andrew O’Neill, national advocacy director at the progressive group Indivisible, which has backed Mamdani for mayor. “Straddling that line is not a permanently tenable position to be in. At some point you’re going to have to pick what side you’re on — and that time might be coming about rapidly.”

Inside the House Democratic Caucus, Jeffries has gotten plaudits from imperiled Democrats for his handling of the GOP redistricting threats to their own seats, which included meetings with the Texas delegation and issuing repeated public threats of blue-state retaliation.

“He’s been as helpful in the Texas fight as possible,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, whose Dallas-area seat is one of the five in the state targeted for a GOP takeover.

New York Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs, a Jeffries ally, said the House leader shouldn’t be judged harshly for his inability to secure rapid map changes across the country — even in his own backyard.

“In his position, you don’t hold all the levers of power across the various states,” Jacobs said. “You can only advocate and state your case. I think he did it well. What individual states can do is outside his control.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Elected officials are on edge and clamoring for enhanced safety measures for themselves and their families after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. But even before Kirk’s death, Senate appropriators green-lit funding to continue a pilot program for increased security for lawmakers at home, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee said Thursday.

“The bill that we passed would provide for a pilot program,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Thursday.

The funding for the pilot program flows through the Senate Sergeant at Arms accounts, which fund Senate-specific security programs separate from the Capitol Police, sparing lawmakers’ office accounts from the burden of large security costs.

The Sergeant at Arms was given an allocation in the legislative branch appropriators bill the Senate approved in July, but as with many security related accounts, itemized details are not made public.

Collins cautioned the measure is now headed to bicameral negotiations, where the funding levels could change and entire policies could get stripped. The inclusion of this money to begin with, however, reflects the extent to which the specter of political violence has become a bleak reality for elected officials.

For years, lawmakers have raised concerns that they are unprotected when they are outside the highly securitized Capitol campus in Washington, even when conducting official duties back home. Their fears became more pronounced after the shooting of state legislators in Minnesota in June, and have metastasized following the targeted killing of Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, at an event on a Utah college campus Wednesday.

But members of both parties and chambers signaled Thursday there’s an appetite for spending money on more security options for lawmakers.

“I think there would be agreement on doing whatever needs to get done for members’ security,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a brief interview Thursday morning.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch subcommittee, said Thursday that the pilot program has already been operating on a small scale for “several members” with “higher threat levels” participating so far. The hope is that Congress will approve a final version of the Senate-passed legislative branch bill that includes the ability to continue the pilot program through the end of the next fiscal year.

Mullin said appropriators are hoping to soon learn “the actual cost” of providing senators with in-state security, plus get information about the necessary size of a member’s security detail and how visible each detail would have to be.

Noting he has received an uptick in questions from concerned colleagues and spouses about funding for enhanced security in the wake of Kirk’s death, Mullins was candid.

“Ultimately, every member needs to be protected,” he told reporters. “Unfortunately, most people think that we have security on us already. Truth is, we don’t.”

And, he added: “It takes money.”

The cost of outfitting every lawmaker in the House and Senate with an around-the-clock Capitol Police detail — a privilege typically only afforded to members of congressional leadership — would likely run into the multi-billions of dollars. It is a price Congress isn’t likely to be willing to pay. Many rank and file lawmakers outside the line of presidential succession also aren’t interested in giving up their freedom to that degree.

In addition to funding for the Sergeant at Arms pilot program, the Senate-passed legislative branch bill provides $25 million for the Capitol Police’s mutual aid reimbursement program, which reimburses state and local law enforcement for protective detail coverage for lawmakers when they are in their home states and districts.

In May, outgoing Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger touted over 100 memorandumsof agreement for mutual aid partnerships with state and local police around the country. But according to Capitol Police this week, there was a significant surge in mutual aid agreements finalized in the wake of the Minnesota shootings that killed a state representative and her husband; wounded a state senator and his wife; and revealed a list of other elected officials who might have also been targets.

The Senate’s pilot program seems aligned with an updated security framework the House released in the wake of the Minnesota attacks.

The House, on a short term basis, doubled funding for residential security to $20,000 per member to “allow for a more comprehensive suite of security equipment to be installed at their residences,” according to a memo distributed to lawmakers.

These funds flowed through an ongoing House Sergeant-at-Arms initiative for securitizing lawmakers’ homes, which saved members’ office accounts from the expense.