[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 36 (Thursday, February 25, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Security

  Mr. President, on a personal note, it is time to take the fences down 
around this Capitol. To leave them up--it is not about security. It is 
about an attempt to say: We are really, really important. We work here.
  Let me say what I think most of my colleagues believe. We aren't. We 
are like everyone whom we represent and whom Lincoln referred to as 
common folks.
  At one time, this was a shining city on a hill, and today we have 
made it into a bunker on the Hill. The message that sends globally, the 
message that it sends domestically, is wrong. It is time for us to take 
these 4,000 national guardsmen and let them go see their families 
versus for 24 hours a day to patrol when we don't even provide them a 
cafeteria that is open at night. They eat out of vending machines or 
they bring what they eat.
  We thank all of these individuals for the safety they have provided 
us after a horrendous January 6 event. Now it is past time for us to 
open up this campus and to allow DC, the District of Columbia, to fully 
open up to the tourism that they thrive off of.
  I thank the President for his indulgence.
  I yield the floor.