WASHINGTON
Padilla, Schiff, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats request U.S. Marshals Service investigation into escalating threats against judges
U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and all Committee Democrats warned the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) about the elevated threat environment for federal judges, Supreme Court justices, and their families and requested information about USMS’ ability to investigate the threats against the judiciary.
“The USMS’s Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report noted an increase in ‘the need for protective services’ and ‘the number and intensity of concerning and potentially threatening electronic communications related to’ judges and other persons involved in the judicial process. Since then, federal judges at all levels of the judiciary and appointed by presidents of both parties have expressed concern for their and their colleagues’ safety as a result of this threat environment. The level of these threats was sufficient to spur the federal judiciary to establish a Judicial Security and Independence Task Force,” wrote the Senators.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced the Judicial Security and Independence Task Force to respond to the growing number of threats to sitting federal judges, the judiciary’s latest effort to protect its judges and staff against violence and intimidation. In their letter, the Senators urged the Marshals to investigate the sources of these threats and determine whether they violate federal law. The Senators also asked whether the Marshals have sufficient resources to protect judges and their families and whether recent cuts to Justice Department funding and personnel have hindered the Marshals’ ability to conduct the necessary investigations.
“The USMS, as the agency primarily responsible for the federal judiciary’s safety, must protect against these threats. As family members increasingly become targets, USMS should be prepared to provide protection as needed for targeted family members. USMS must also proactively investigate the sources of these threats, both for a full understanding of the threat environment and to determine whether civil or criminal remedies are appropriate,” continued the Senators.
Federal judges, Supreme Court justices, and their family members have faced relentless attacks, especially on social media, which have escalated in recent years. A Supreme Court justice was the target of an assassination attempt, another justice’s family member received bomb threats at her residence, a federal judge’s child was threatened, and several federal judges have had deliveries anonymously sent to their residences in an apparent warning that people know their address.
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, led the letter. Full text of the letter is available at https://www.padilla.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-04-11-Letter-to-US-Marshals-Service-Threats-to-Judges.pdf
—Submitted
SACRAMENTO
Newsom, Legislature double down on state’s critical cap-and-trade program in face of federal threats
Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas announced today they will seek an extension of California’s nation-leading climate pollution reduction program – known as cap-and-trade – during this legislative year.
The program is currently set to expire in 2030, and requires extension by the Legislature. As the Governor noted in his proposed budget, extending the program this year can provide the market with greater certainty, attract stable investment, further California’s climate leadership and set the state on a clear path to achieve its 2045 carbon-neutrality goal.
Today’s announcement comes as the Trump Administration threatens deep cuts to federal environmental programs and attempts to derail state climate efforts with a “glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.”
The cap-and-trade program is the state’s leading climate program – proposed by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and adopted under a law he signed in 2006 – that holds carbon polluters accountable by charging them for emitting more carbon pollution than allowed. The funds raised are then put to use across the state on projects and programs that help clean the air, protect public health, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, conserve nature, and more. The funds are also delivered directly back to Californians in the form of the California Climate Credit, a credit applied to utility bills twice a year.
As of last year, the program had funded $28 billion in investments across the state in the last decade and cut carbon emissions equivalent to taking 80% of the state’s cars off the road. Since 2000, the state has cut carbon emissions by 20% while California’s GDP has increased by 78%.
Details of the Governor’s proposal for the cap-and-trade extension will be shared in the coming weeks.
—Submitted
SACRAMENTO
It’s that time again: Get ready to learn about the suspense file
Before adjourning for Spring Recess last week, the state Senate and Assembly appropriations committees moved a total of 115 bills onto their “suspense files.” What follows is a rather opaque process that could end with roughly a third of those bills killed — away from public view and with little to no debate.
As CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow explains, any bill estimated to cost at least $50,000 gets placed on the suspense file. Next month, and again in August, the appropriations committees will either move the bills off of “suspense” so they can advance through the Legislature, or hold them — essentially killing those measures for the session.
Last summer the committees nixed about a third of the 830 bills on suspense. The process can be fast-paced, and with few votes recorded it can be difficult for both the public and even lawmakers who authored the measures, to know why bills were spiked.
Assemblymember Corey Jackson, a Moreno Valley Democrat whose child tax credit bill died last year in the suspense file: “The way we treat the appropriations process is a non-democratic process; I believe that it’s a corrupt process.”
That same summer, other lawmakers and advocates accused Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration of inflating the cost estimates of health care bills in order to block them by way of the suspense process. A spokesperson for the administration said the claim was “outrageous and inaccurate.”
The bills placed on suspense last week included measures that would allow homeless students to live out of their cars; require food sold in prison vending machines be priced at market retail price; and create the California Latino Commission.
—Lynn La, CALMatters
