GOP-Led House Removes Capitol Metal Detectors Installed After Jan. 6 Breach

U.S. Capitol Police survey the corridor around the House of Representatives chamber after enhanced security protocols were enacted, including metal detectors for lawmakers, after protesters stormed the Capitol, in Washington on Jan. 12, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

The incoming Republican majority in the House removed metal detectors outside the lower chamber floor on Tuesday, coming about two years after they were installed.

Video footage and photos uploaded by congressional staffers, members of Congress, and reporters showed the metal detectors being removed on Tuesday morning.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) wrote that with the removal of the magnetometers, “We’re turning Pelosi’s House back into the People’s House.” The GOP lawmaker, who narrowly won her reelection bid, posted a video of workers removing the devices.

Sarah Groh, a congressional staffer for Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), wrote that it’s “12 noon sharp,” and Republicans just had the metal detectors removed from the House floor.”

A rules package for the new Congress will remove fines for both mask mandates and “security screenings before entering the House floor,” according to a Republican-crafted package (pdf) unveiled earlier this week. “Members should not face unnecessary disruptions as they carry out their constitutional duties,” it said. Members have not yet voted on the rules package.

House Democrats in early 2021 installed the metal detectors following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a former House speaker, stated that offenders would be subject to fines in the thousands of dollars, and if representatives did not pay the fine, it would be deducted from their paychecks.

Several lawmakers, including Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), were fined for not going through the detector in 2021. Last year, a federal judge upheld fines for Clyde, Gohmert, and Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) after they filed a lawsuit to challenge the fees.

In tossing their lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly at the time ruled that the fines are an internal House matter and that federal courts don’t have authority over House rules.

“The security screening, fining, and salary deductions challenged here have a direct nexus to, and are part of an overall scheme regulating, Members’ behavior in the lawmaking atmosphere on the House floor,” he wrote last year. “Thus, these acts qualify as legislative acts.”

As for Boebert, the Colorado lawmaker has said she wants to carry a pistol on Capitol Hill. When she was asked by a New York Post reporter about whether she would carry, she shrugged.

“I think they should be removed from the Capitol, filled with Tannerite, and blown up,” Boebert told the paper as the devices were removed. Tannerite is a type of explosive.

And Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of the House GOP leadership, told the paper that the removal of the metal detectors showed “it is back to the people’s house, and we’re going to make sure we stand up for the American people.”

The new Republican rules would also end the practice of proxy voting in which members can vote on behalf of others. Those rules were adopted under Pelosi amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the rules can only be voted on after a new House speaker is confirmed. After two rounds of voting in the House, there was no clear winner on Tuesday as House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed to secure enough votes.