An Odd Way to Shorten the Day

I believe I have mentioned before that the security in the House Office buildings has become significantly more pronounced since 9/11. In fact, each piece of mail sent into a congressional office building is radiated and opened before it ever reaches the congressional office. Well today, which was supposed to be my shadowing day, was itself overshadowed by the fact that there were last-minute jitters about health care legislation and a suspicious package left by the 7th floor men's room.

I believe to start off with the first reason why I wouldn't be shadowing the Congressman would be most interesting. There was an emergency Blue Dog Democrat Caucus meeting scheduled at the last minute to discuss all updates about the health care bill and it was to be a Members Only meeting at 10:00 o'clock this morning. This displaced on a meeting I was to have been attending with the Congressman.

We also heard the news late this morning that the full House will not be voting on H.R. 3200 for sure until September now; however, you may still be hearing that the House voted on the bill and it passed, or something approximately like that, and that sometime over the next few days there may be a vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a Committee that Congressman Moore is not member of and just happens to be chaired by Congressman Henry Waxman (the same Representative who sponsored the ACES bill). I suspect that in due time each Committee with oversight responsibility for health care will pass some amended version of the bill so that the full House can debate, and take action, on it following the August recess.

When I returned from lunch today, I was dismayed to discover that I was unable to use one of the Men's Rest Rooms because the area around it was blocked off by several police officers. Soon thereafter I learned that there had been a suspicious package discovered in that part of the corridor so the Capitol Police (yes, the US Capitol has its own Police Force) were blocking off access and were preventing people from passing in the general area. The situation quickly became more tense, and they brought up screens and shelters to obscure the view of that part of the hall way and/or to 'protect' people in the adjoining areas. By 1:30 PM, the situation had escalated to the point that the Police ordered a full evacuation of the building.

If my earlier posts haven't emphasized the fact that both the pace and tone of communications have escalated and have created a stressful state around the Capitol. I'm even hearing of other offices receiving threats among their heated calls. So naturally, the Police were being cautious and not taking chances given the tense environment that has emerged.

Our whole team followed procedures and quickly exited the building and across the street from the Longworth Office Building. Naturally there was quite a crowd outside and we were all left unsure of a timetable to be able to re-enter the building. After about 30-minutes our Chief of Staff made the decision to allow staff to end the work day and unless we were notified NOT to return tomorrow, we'd start off with things hopefully being a bit more normal on Thursday.

Considering the days events I certainly understand, and frankly appreciate, the fact that I hadn't done my Shadow today. Unfortunately, with the August Recess scheduled just two days from now, there is a growing chance that I may not be doing a shadow day this Summer.