The Capitol

As a youth, I worked for about a year for Congress Watch, which was Ralph Nader's lobbying arm. (It isn't clear that it still exists in any meaningful form.) That meant I spent a lot of time in the congressional office buildings and the Capitol, doing the menial task of distributing position papers. Believe it or not, back in those days they were mimeographed. When I lived in D.C. I also became a demonstration organizer. I did non-violence training, trained and supervised demonstration marshals. I participated in the anti-nuclear demonstration after the Three Mile Island meltdown, which was held at the Capitol.  So I have some information that might help you think about the recent unpleasantness. 

 

As most people know, or should know, the Capitol building was constructed largely by enslaved men. The current configuration is a major expansion of the original. The original House and Senate chambers became too small, occasioning the additions. The original House chamber is now Statuary Hall. The old Senate Chamber has been preserved as a museum. The Supreme Court originally met in the Capitol but now has its own building across the street to the east. The Supreme Court chamber is also now a museum.

 

The only members of congress who have offices in the Capitol today are the leadership, including the Vice President of the U.S. as president of the senate. The remaining members have offices in separate congressional office buildings (COBs), of which there are six. This is also where the hearing rooms are, and the gyms, cafeterias and hair salons. They are connected to the Capitol building by tunnels, with little toy trains the members can ride if they wish.

 

The leaders also have offices in the COBs, which is where they meet with members of the public. Their Capitol offices are not generally open to the public and there are no directories or signage to show people where they are. They are not at all easy to find. The original Speaker's office was just outside the House chamber, but it has been combined with two other offices to improve ventilation, creating what is called the Speaker's Lobby where members hang out and can schmooze with reporters and lobbyists. 

You will often read that the new president is sworn in on the Capitol steps, but this isn't really true. The famous steps, which are where the public normally enters, are on the east front facing the Supreme Court building. The West Front, where inaugurations take place, has a large platform, really a raised state, facing the national mall. There are steps leading up to it on the sides, but it isn't the Capitol steps. Other public events are held there, including permitted demonstrations. (I suppose this will no longer be the case.) The West front provided the stage for the Three Mile Island demonstration, and I spent it on the platform.

An ordinary condition of demonstration permits on the mall and other federal properties including the Capitol grounds and the Ellipse is that people are not allowed to carry flag sticks, or any other sort of rigid pole. There are inevitably large numbers of three or four different kinds of police -- Capitol Police, D.C. Police, Park Service, Federal Protective Service -- making sure of it. Another ordinary condition of demonstration permits is that the organizers provide marshals -- like me -- to make sure the crowd stays orderly and defuse any confrontations, and also provide emergency medical services. So what happened on January 6 wasn't only that there weren't enough Capitol police on hand. The entire demonstration should have been illegal and all of those flag-carrying participants should have been stopped and their flagpoles confiscated while they were on the Ellipse and certainly before they ever got to the Capitol. That would be standard procedure even for a demonstration of pacifist monks. 

Something very, very strange happened.

*I also took part as a trainer and marshal in a march on the Pentagon against intervention in Central America, and several other large demonstrations, as well as being in charge of stage security for the Gay Pride festival in two different years.