Keep the Capitol Secure but Open

I can remember as clearly as if it were yesterday my arrival at the Capitol in March, 1975, as a new staff person for freshman Rep. George Miller (Calif.). I had been to Washington many times (mostly during anti-Vietnam War demonstrations) and a close family friend who had been our congressman in New Jersey in the 1960s had sent me many cards and mementos of the building. The image of the domed marble and sandstone edifice on the Hill was familiar.

On that cold winter night, the dome was lit brilliantly against a black sky and I was nervously preparing to begin my career as a House employee. As my new officemate dropped me at the Longworth Building, the sight of the massive dome struck me as never before. “Wow,” I said, “if that sight ever stops affecting you emotionally, it’s time to leave.”

When I did depart nearly four decades later, the sight of the dome had no less impact. By that time, the Capitol had become something far more than an iconic office building. For me, like thousands of men and women who have spent countless days and many late nights walking its corridors, meeting in hideaway offices, negotiating the maze of underground tunnels, giving tours to awestruck friends and constituents, there is an historical sacredness to the Capitol, to walking up the stairs worn down over many generations by the Clays and Cannons, the Reeds and the Rayburns, the Lodges and the Kennedys.

It is impossible to describe the anger generated by the attempted desecration of the building by a rampaging mob bent on disrupting our constitutional government. As one who devoted considerable time as chief of staff to Speaker Pelosi on working with those charged with upgrading campus security, it was distressing to see the ease with which the supposedly fortified building was both invaded and vandalized, the operations of Congress disrupted, even if for a few terrifying hours.

In the aftermath, there will be concern that the Capitol does not become a cloistered fortress, surrounded by a tall metal fence, its public galleries separated from the chambers by bulletproof plexiglass shields.