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Politico.com...
Lawmakers face the
new normal, By Carrie Budoff Brown
Jan. 11, 2011 - He had never thought twice about going to the grocery
store, until Sunday.
But Rep. Steve Cohen went anyway, padding down the aisles and accepting
well wishes from constituents as unnerved as he was by the shooting of
his friend Rep. Gabrielle Giffords the day before. A young man
approached Cohen, slow seeming, a little out of it, telling the
lawmaker that he thought the government was waging war against the
people, before moving on.
One thought ran through Cohen’s mind.
“The guy who shot Gabby was marginal as well,” Cohen said.
Members of Congress returned to their usual routines Monday or tried
to, at least — pledging to do their jobs as they always have, reluctant
to cocoon themselves in security and erect barriers between them and
the people they serve. But in ways big and small, the rhythms of being
an elected official didn’t feel or look so normal, even if it was just
for the time being.
Despite perceptions of chauffeured lifestyles, most senators and
representatives drive themselves home at night, shop alone at grocery
stores on the weekend and go about their business without an entourage.
For most on official business — such as a meet-your-representative
event like the one where Giffords was gunned down, outside a
supermarket — there is rarely security.
Most don’t want that to change. They also wonder whether, finally, it
must.
Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) questioned whether he would still walk in
parades or so easily dismiss the threats that pour into his office. “I
have a responsibility to my staff,” he said.
At least four police cruisers turned out for Nevada Democratic Rep.
Shelley Berkley’s news conference Monday on the health care law, a show
of protection that the local media described as “not normal.”
Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) received an unannounced visit to his home by
local police officers. They just wanted to check it out after the
shooting.
And back in Tennessee, Cohen loaded his pistol and applied for a permit
to carry it. His district director did the same.
“It is constantly on my mind,” Cohen said of the shootings. Giffords is
“a friend, a member of my class. I make John Boehner look like a
granite statue these days,” a reference to the often teary-eyed House
speaker.
After taping CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Tennessee Sen. Lamar
Alexander — the No. 3 Republican in the Senate — said he was off to the
grocery store. On Tuesday night, he will head to a college basketball
game, Florida versus Tennessee, where he scored front-row tickets.
“I mean, we’ll be out just like elected officials are supposed to be,”
he said.
There are exceptions. Following in the footsteps of their predecessors,
New York Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand
typically travel around the greater New York City area with a detective
from the New York Police Department.
But the Senate’s chief law enforcement officer, Terrance Gainer, said
that federal authorities cannot provide security for each member of
Congress, adding that such an aggressive move would require more than a
dozen officers to protect one lawmaker.
“The direct threats are very low,” Gainer said Monday. “We have to keep
this in some perspective.”
Giffords’s shooting wasn’t the first event to change how some lawmakers
view the issue. The heated health care town halls of 2009, which boiled
over with angry protests and constituents sometimes shouting at
lawmakers, prompted some members to realize they were vulnerable.Rep.
Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) predicted that members would continue gravitating
toward tele-town halls and visits to local groups — tightly controlled
events that grew in popularity during that summer.
“Anything with a buffer raises concerns,” Altmire said. “But the public
probably has been turned off by recent public events.”
Beyond that, senators, representatives and aides say additional steps
to tighten security are unlikely absent specific threats.
In a phone interview Monday from a snowy Minnesota-North Dakota border,
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said she was on her way to a meeting with
business leaders.
“I’m not changing,” Klobuchar said. “I have 13 public events on Monday
and Tuesday and we’re in the middle of them. … I don’t think you can
just go behind closed doors and not meet with your constituents.”
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a former mayor of Paterson, said he “never
once” used a bodyguard or other security during his six years running
the city, and he wouldn’t accept one now.
“There are a lot of nut cases out there, no question about it; we all
know,” Pascrell said. “But we cannot change the way we do our duty.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), a former
FBI agent, and his staff received threats in 2007, including a break-in
at his Lansing office and chalk outlines — like those from victims at
crime scenes — drawn on the sidewalk. Rogers said he reviewed the
security situation with members of his staff and family at that time
but the threat later went away.
“My thing at the time was that we don’t give them what they want, don’t
stop doing our job of representing the people of our district,” Rogers
said of the incident. He rejected calls for extensive new security
measures for rank-and-file lawmakers but said all members must be aware
of their “security profile at all times” and act accordingly.
Cohen gave a lot of thought to security risks for members of Congress
well before the Arizona shootings.
The catalyst was a truTV series called “Conspiracy Theory,” which once
focused on his bill that would have established emergency operations
centers on military bases to provide assistance during emergencies and
natural disasters. But the show, hosted by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse
Ventura, alleged that the bill would create “concentration camps” run
by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It featured images of
Holocaust victims wearing Stars of David and was viewed tens of
thousands of times on YouTube.
The man who approached Cohen Sunday referred to the show, asking him
why he wanted to put people in concentration camps. Cohen said of
course the bill wouldn’t do that and tried to explain his idea but
wasn’t sure he was getting through.
In December, Cohen wrote an op-ed published in Roll Call warning that
“lazy, irresponsible and fear-mongering programming” by the media could
cause someone to get hurt — a warning that resonated in the aftermath
of the shootings.
Cohen said he won’t do his job much differently than before, with one
exception: At his next town hall meeting, police officers will stand in
the front of the room rather than blend into the crowd as they usually
do.
“It is for my protection but also for the public’s protection,” Cohen
said. “If a policeman had been with Gabby, he might not have been able
to stop [the gunman], but you wouldn’t have had [so many] people shot.”
John Bresnahan, Richard E. Cohen and Manu Raju contributed.
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