OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Why Politicians Need to Stay Out in the Open
By PAUL E. KANJORSKI
Published: January 10, 2011
Washington
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THE shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords this weekend reminded me of another, similar event in 1954, when I was a page in the House of Representatives. While the House was in session, Puerto Rican nationalists burst into the gallery and shot five members of Congress assembled on the floor.
There were few security restrictions around the Capitol at the time; anyone who wanted to watch Congress in action was welcome to walk into the building and take a seat in the House or Senate public galleries. There were no metal detectors or even many Capitol Police officers. In fact, it was a congressman, James Van Zandt of Pennsylvania, who rushed from the House floor and tackled the assailants with the assistance of a gallery spectator.
Americans were shocked at the assault, but only minor security procedures were put in place afterward. Most people assumed the attack was an aberration committed by political extremists and unlikely to be repeated.
My fellow page and best friend Bill Emerson and I carried several of the wounded members off the House floor, and in the years that followed we often talked about what that searing experience had meant. We recognized that the Capitol building itself was a symbol of freedom around the world and was therefore an inviting target. But we concluded that working in the Capitol required the assumption of a certain amount of risk to one’s personal safety.
Three decades later we were both members of Congress — he as a Republican from Missouri, I as a Democrat from Pennsylvania — and we continued our debate about balancing members’ security with the imperative to remain accessible.
It wasn’t idle talk. During the run-up to the first Persian Gulf war there were threats from Middle Eastern terrorists against Congress, and the sergeant at arms tried to persuade Congress to install an iron fence around the Capitol and to encase the House gallery in bulletproof glass. We both strongly objected, and the plan was rejected.
Bill didn’t live to see 9/11, but I suspect he would have been as uneasy as I was to see barricades around the Capitol complex and complicated new procedures for visitors, who are no longer free to roam the halls without ID cards. Like most of my colleagues who witnessed the smoke rising from the Pentagon in 2001, I accepted that we had to adopt reasonable restrictions to protect our nation’s critical buildings.
Nevertheless, even in this post-9/11 world, the shooting of Ms. Giffords was especially shocking, because it was so personal. She was hunted down far from the symbolic halls of power while performing the most fundamental responsibility of her job, listening to her constituents.
As far as we know, her attacker had no grand political point; I doubt we will ever really understand his motives. What the shooting does tell us, however, is that it is impossible to eliminate the risks faced by elected officials when they interact with their constituents.
We all lose an element of freedom when security considerations distance public officials from the people. Therefore, it is incumbent on all Americans to create an atmosphere of civility and respect in which political discourse can flow freely, without fear of violent confrontation.
That is why the House speaker, John Boehner, spoke for everyone who has been in Congress when he said that an attack against one of us is an attack against all who serve. It is also an attack against all Americans.
More than 50 years ago, my friend Bill Emerson and I witnessed an unspeakably violent expression of a political message on the floor of the House, and we learned how easily political differences can degenerate into violence. At the same time, regardless of the political climate, there can never be freedom without risk.
Despite numerous threats, Ms. Giffords took that risk and welcomed her constituents at a grocery store in Tucson. She recognized, as we did, that accepting the risk of violence was part of the price of freedom.
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