Rep. Billy Long doesn't plan to shy away from events after shooting
Posted on January 12, 2011 14:17 pm CST
WASHINGTON — Rep. Billy Long said Tuesday that he doesn’t plan to shy away from district events in Springfield, despite the shooting of an Arizona congresswoman over the weekend.
"We gotta marshal on,” said Long, a former auctioneer. “We took an oath last week to represent the people in the people’s House. We can’t let one mentally deranged person change everything we do. We’re people of the people."
Long was just sworn in to his first term in the U.S. House last week. He was attending a Congressional Research Service retreat for new members over the weekend when he learned of the shooting via Twitter.
"We were on break, and I was flipping through my phone and I saw a re-tweet from NPR that the congresswoman had been shot," he said. He asked other lawmakers about it, but no one had heard about the shooting yet. He called a friend in Tucson, who checked and called him back to confirm.
"I was just hoping and praying that it was wrong," Long said.
At 2:36 p.m., the Springfield Republican twittered the news himself: "Our thoughts and prayers go to the families of Gabrielle Giffords and her Staff — horrific tragedy"
Giffords, D-Ariz., was one of 20 people who were shot during a meeting with constituents outside a Tucson grocery store. Six people were killed, including her district director, Gabe Zimmerman. Giffords, who was shot in the head, remains in critical condition.
Since then, Long and his wife took part in a bipartisan conference call Sunday during which 800 members and spouses heard from congressional leaders and William Livingood, sergeant-at-arms of the House, who briefed them on security. The call also included representatives from the FBI and Giffords’ staff.
Reps. Vicky Hartzler, a freshman Republican member from Harrisonville, and Jo Ann Emerson, an eight-term lawmaker from Cape Girardeau, also took part in that conference call, their offices said.
There are no planned votes this week after Republican leaders canceled a vote to repeal the health care law, which had previously been scheduled for Wednesday. Instead, leaders will hold a security briefing and prayer service on Wednesday.
Long, Hartzler and Emerson all planned to attend.
Meanwhile, there has been much speculation about how the shooting of Giffords, while holding a routine event, would change the culture of the House, and how it might result in House members’ being more distant and more hesitant to interact with the people they represent.
Hartzler spokesman Steve Walsh declined to discuss security precautions the office would be taking after the shootings. Emerson said in a statement that the shootings would not affect her district events.
“I take very seriously the safety of my constituents and my staff at all of the public events we hold," she said. "This terrible incident hits close to home because it concerns one of my colleagues, Rep. Giffords, but it isn’t going to change the number of public events or the way I conduct them.”
Maria Speiser, a spokeswoman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, said the Democrat would continue to look to local police and Capitol Police for guidance at public events.
"For town hall meetings, our staff always advises local police and leaves it up to them as to what to do," she said, adding that they tell local police how many people they are expecting as well as when and where events will be held. Whether police officers are at the event, however, is up to local law enforcement.
Speiser said she wasn’t aware of any threats made against McCaskill that required extra protection.
Sen. Roy Blunt, the Springfield Republican who served for 14 years in the House before Long, said he also would not curtail any local events due to the shootings. But, like McCaskill, he plans to alert local law enforcement before events.
As a new senator, Blunt has no extra security. However, for the six years that he served in House leadership, Blunt had a three-member security detail accompany him everywhere he went.
While on Capitol Hill, either in the Capitol building or one of the House and Senate office buildings, members of Congress are under the watchful eye of the 1,800 members of the Capitol Hill Police. Additionally, each office is equipped with a panic button that staffers can hit if something happens.
But back in their home states, most members have no security.
"The thought always crosses your mind that something could happen. But you can’t live your life in fear," Long said. "At the end of the day, you just gotta watch what you do, but you can’t stop what you do and you can’t go underground. You’ve just got to keep living your life and representing the people of your district."
Malia Rulon, 1/12/2011