Embattled House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has done one thing to appease many GOP colleagues – remove the metal detectors outside the House chamber.
The metal detectors were removed Tuesday on the first day of Republican control over the House, according to The Hill — the same day McCarthy failed on three separate votes to be elected speaker.
Sending the metal detectors to the scrap heap was one proposal McCarthy made in hopes of attracting enough Republicans to secure election, according to Roll Call.
Although McCarthy’s end game of winning the speakership remains uncertain, there was no mistaking the glee from several Republicans as the metal detectors were removed.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. I think they need to be removed from the Capitol, filled with Tannerite and blown up,” Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado said.
Boebert tweeted a video of her celebrating the removal of the devices.
“When I arrived in Congress two years, Nancy Pelosi put this hunk of garbage outside of the House chambers for members of Congress to go through. Today, they are being removed and we are turning Pelosi’s House back into the people’s House,” she said.
We’re turning Pelosi’s House back into the People’s House. pic.twitter.com/xsnDw0kt9F
— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) January 3, 2023
Boebert told the New York Post that Democrats “should not feel unsafe. If they do, they should come see me for a concealed carry weapons permit, and I can make sure they are locked and loaded in Washington, D.C., legally.”
“Nancy Pelosi has been a monster of a speaker, and I’m very happy that she no longer has the gavel and little political stunts like the magnetometers are gone forever,” she said.
Then-Speaker Pelosi put the metal detectors in place after the Capitol incursion on Jan. 6, 2021. She then imposed fines on House members, mostly Republicans, who tried to bypass the devices.
House Republicans have proposed ending fines that were imposed in the Pelosi era for not wearing masks or complying with security.
Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia also celebrated the removal of what he called “unconstitutional” devices that he said were part of “the Left’s dangerous political narrative that ‘the enemy is within the House,’” according to Roll Call.
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“As Speaker Pelosi’s reign of terror finally comes to an end, so too must her authoritarian rules,” Clyde said Tuesday.
Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut also said the metal detectors needed to go.
“I hated them from moment one. I have lots of safety concerns, but getting shot on the House floor is not one of them,” he said.
Metal detectors have been installed at entrances to the House Floor
— Kelly Phares (@kellyfphares) January 12, 2021
Other Democrats were angry at the change.
“I think it’s clear that the Republican majority is having a hard time figuring out how to govern and that Kevin McCarthy will do anything to appeal to the extreme right wing of his party to get votes for the speakership,” Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California said.
“I think our safety and security here is the most important thing that the speaker should be looking out for, and it’s clear that’s not Kevin McCarthy’s priority,” she said.
Story cited here.
