Congressional staff and lawmakers are on edge, once again, in the aftermath of a violent Monday attack that targeted the district office of Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly.
The incident, which sent a longtime Connolly aide and an intern to the hospital, has lent urgency to members’ continued concerns about their safety outside the Capitol’s heavily patrolled perimeter.
Ahead of the slated Tuesday release of the House’s legislative-branch spending bill, which will lay out funding levels for Capitol Police and other security measures, lawmakers are again discussing what — if any — level of protection would make them feel truly safe.
The bill is expected to boost funding for the Capitol Police, in line with more than a decade of annual increases lawmakers have reliably delivered to the department. As threats and fears rise, lawmakers hope that a steady stream of cash can insulate them from growing threats.
Yet aides on both sides of the aisle described themselves as “freaked out” and “uneasy” after news of Monday’s attack spread and details emerged about the baseball bat wielding assailant asking for Connolly by name. The lawmaker himself said he was "mobbed on the floor by Republicans and Democrats who easily related to what happened to me."
"We don’t have the kind of security we have up here at the Capitol, at the district level," Connolly said in a Monday night interview. "Many of our offices are in malls or office buildings, and so you don’t have any kind of sophisticated protection or security screening. And so I think we’re going to have to really talk about that."
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) sounded a similar note: “You can be sure that as soon as we know more, my chief of staff and my state director are going to be getting on the phone with everybody at the district offices to say ‘Hey, is there something that we should do differently?’”
Kaine and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) both voiced concerns that safety fears could deter aspiring aides from public service.
“It is so devastating to hear about an incident like that, because it will discourage, sadly, some people from deciding to either work in government or be an intern or work in a congressional office,” Cicilline said. “One of the ways that we can provide high quality representation is to attract really talented people who are willing to work. And it has real implications for our democracy.”
Kaine wondered if attacks like the one that hit Connolly's office may change the minds of the “awful lot of altruistic young people” who take internships or jobs on Capitol Hill or in districts.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he called Connolly on Monday to check in after what McCarthy described as “a heinous attack,” and offered his prayers for a quick recovery for the injured staffers. His remarks, at a press conference dedicated to celebrating law enforcement, also thanked “the quick actions of the law enforcement who apprehended the suspect.”
Capitol Police identified the suspect as 49-year old Xuan Kha Tran Pham of Fairfax, Va., and charged him one count of aggravated malicious wounding and one count of malicious wounding.
Recent attacks on lawmakers and their family members, including the assaults of Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) in her apartment-building elevator and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul in their San Francisco home, have led members to press security officials for options to protect themselves in their districts as well as off-campus in Washington.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger has requested $840.9 million for his department in the coming fiscal year, a more than 14 percent boost over current funding levels. His request includes money for expanded threat investigations and ramped-up security operations for members and families, both while they are in Washington and at home.
Manger recently cited the rise in “heated political rhetoric” as a factor that he sees as raising the risk of future security incidents.
“I am very, very concerned about the normalization of political violence, particularly by leaders who should know better,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) said in an interview on Monday night. “We should all be condemning political violence wherever it occurs.”
Jordain Carney and Nancy Vu contributed to this report.
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By: Katherine Tully-McManus
Title: Security fears flare anew in Congress after an attack on one of their own
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2023/05/15/gerry-connolly-attack-virginia-00097067
Published Date: Mon, 15 May 2023 20:05:49 EST
