A handful of Supreme Court justices are preparing to testify before Congress later this month to defend the court's fiscal 2027 budget request, a rare appearance on Capitol Hill that hasn't happened in roughly seven years, the Washington Examiner reported.
Sources told Punchbowl News on Thursday that a few justices will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 20, though the committee's public calendar does not yet list a hearing for that date with any of the nine justices. The House and Senate will return to session next week and begin holding multiple appropriations hearings for federal agencies' fiscal 2027 budget requests.
The core of the visit is money, and security. The Supreme Court is seeking more than $228 million in discretionary funding, an increase of roughly $20 million over the prior year. Of that total, $14.6 million is earmarked for protection and security, a line item the court says reflects rising threats against the judiciary.
Between 1960 and 2011, justices appeared at congressional hearings at least once a year. That regular practice ended after Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia testified at a Senate hearing in 2011 about the constitutional role of federal judges. Scalia died in 2016.
The last time any sitting justice testified before Congress was in 2019, when Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan appeared at a House subcommittee hearing to discuss the court's budget request for fiscal 2020. Since then, nothing. No appearances, no testimony, no public accounting before the lawmakers who fund the court's operations.
That seven-year gap matters. The Supreme Court operates with a level of institutional independence that no other branch of government enjoys, and for good reason. But independence from political pressure is not the same as independence from the appropriations process. Congress holds the purse strings. Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is spent, and justices who show up to explain the budget are doing nothing more than what every other branch of government is expected to do.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut Democrat who serves as ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, called for the justices to "cross the street" and answer questions. DeLauro said she heard from Justice Kagan that the justices are willing to testify.
More notable is that House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, is open to the idea. Cole's one condition: that the hearing not devolve, as he put it, "into some sort of circus."
That concern is well-founded. Congressional Democrats have spent the last several years trying to haul the justices before committees not to discuss budgets but to wage political warfare over ethics. In 2023, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin invited Chief Justice John Roberts to testify about Supreme Court ethics rules amid scrutiny of Justice Clarence Thomas. Roberts declined, writing in a letter that such testimony by a chief justice is "exceedingly rare" given separation-of-powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.
Roberts noted only two recorded instances of a chief justice testifying before Congress, both involving routine judicial administration. The distinction between a budget hearing and an ethics inquisition is not subtle, and Roberts was right to draw the line.
The budget numbers themselves reveal a court under pressure. The $14.6 million reserved for protection and security is a significant chunk of a $228 million request. Separately, the court's budget for care of its building and grounds totals $18 million, and more than a third of that, over $6 million, is set aside for an exterior visitor screening facility design recommended after physical security assessments.
These are not abstract line items. They reflect the real-world consequences of a political environment in which threats against federal judges have escalated. The court isn't asking for marble statues. It's asking for screening facilities and security upgrades.
That context makes it all the more important that the justices show up and make their case directly. Appropriators on both sides of the aisle need to hear from the institution itself, not from intermediaries, not from written submissions, about why these expenditures are necessary. The current composition of the court and the political stakes surrounding it make transparency around its operations more valuable, not less.
Cole's concern about a "circus" reflects a legitimate worry that Democrats will use any hearing as a vehicle to relitigate ethics complaints and political grievances. That pattern is well established. Durbin himself said in 2023 that "the status quo is no longer tenable" regarding ethics at the court and vowed to continue pursuing reforms even without the court's participation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put it plainly at the time: "The Supreme Court and the court system is a whole separate part of our Constitution." That's correct as a matter of law. But it does not mean the court can or should avoid the appropriations process. Budget testimony is not a concession of authority. It is a basic function of republican government.
The question is whether congressional leadership, particularly on the Republican side, can hold the line and keep the hearing focused on dollars and security rather than letting it become a platform for political grandstanding. Cole seems to understand the stakes. Whether his counterparts in the Senate share that discipline remains to be seen.
Democrats have repeatedly challenged the court's legitimacy in recent years, and the temptation to use a budget hearing as a Trojan horse for those attacks will be strong. If that happens, the justices would be justified in declining future invitations, and the blame would rest squarely on the members who turned an appropriations hearing into a show trial.
Several key details remain unclear. Which justices will appear has not been disclosed. Whether the House Appropriations Committee will hold its own hearing, beyond expressing interest, is unresolved. And the Senate committee's calendar still does not formally list a May 20 hearing with any justice.
The fact that this is happening at all, however, is significant. The court's willingness to engage with the appropriations process, even informally, signals an institution that recognizes the value of showing up. The court's decisions carry enormous consequences for every branch of government and for every American. The least it can do is explain how it plans to spend $228 million of their money.
As National Review noted in its coverage of the 2023 Roberts episode, the institutional norms around judicial testimony are real and worth respecting. But norms around fiscal accountability are real too. A budget hearing is not an ethics tribunal. It is the most basic form of democratic oversight, and it is long overdue.
If Congress can keep the hearing honest and the justices can keep it substantive, both branches will have done their jobs. That shouldn't be a high bar. But in Washington, it usually is.
