There was no horde of protesters outside the Capitol on Monday morning ahead of the quadrennial certification of election results.
A smattering of individuals trudged through the snow — which rocked the D.C. region with several inches overnight — and took photos from behind the fencing that was set up in a wide perimeter around the campus.
Law enforcement, including Capitol Police as well as officers from farther-flung departments, like New York City, milled around the scarcely populated streets. Some carried long guns. Police vehicles accounted for the only traffic directly around the building, where inside lawmakers were gathering for a joint session.
“Don’t take for granted how quiet the Capitol will be today,” Democratic Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut posted on X Monday morning. “It’s because today in America, tragically, only one party respects elections. The other party uses and justifies violence to keep power. Had Harris won, today likely would have been another bloodbath.”
This year’s certification of election results was unremarkable — a vast departure from the process that spiraled into chaos four years ago, when rioters compelled by the false claim that the election had been stolen from President Donald Trump assaulted more than 100 police officers and delayed the count.
This time, police easily outnumbered protesters.
“Insurrectionists cannot be president,” said Nate Wetter Taylor, who traveled to D.C. from Champaign, Ill., this month and was trying to make his case to Senate staffers who passed.
Wetter Taylor, who was standing close to the police perimeter just north of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, said he was there that day with a group of around five other protesters, though they weren’t in sight.
“They’re warming up in the station. I think they might be coming back soon,” he said, referring to nearby Union Station. But at least for the moment, one of the few others in eyeshot was a Trump supporter who was livestreaming on YouTube. The pair stood around looking cold, wondering aloud where they might find more people.
Unusually heavy snowfall for the region may have kept some people away. But the police presence was also amped up compared with past events.
The Department of Homeland Security in September designated Jan. 6 a National Special Security Event, unlocking additional resources from the federal government, state and local partners. It’s the first time the counting of electoral results has received such a designation.
Fencing extended from the building’s West Front, where fighting was particularly intense four years ago, past the Botanic Garden to 3rd Street SW.
“We’re living in a time of heightened threat environment toward government and elected officials,” Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said on Friday at a news conference with city officials, also citing “recent mass killings and acts of terrorism,” in an apparent reference to a New Year’s truck attack in New Orleans that left 15 dead.
“Our nation’s capitol is prepared to ensure that the legislative process will proceed without disruption and our government will have a peaceful transfer or power,” he said.
The heightened security posture interfered with some of the wintery activities that normally happen on and around the Capitol grounds when snow descends on Washington.
The Washington DC Snowball Fight Association, which in the past has organized snowball fights on the National Mall, opted to move its Monday skirmish to Meridian Hill Park.
Meanwhile, a rival snowball fight organizer, Max Bodach, chief of staff at the Foundation for American Innovation, drew some heat for a flier he circulated with the phrase “snow-storming the Capitol.” As of Monday afternoon, nearly 200 people had RSVP’d that they were going to the snowball fight, which was set to be held at a safe distance from the Capitol on the National Mall.
“I have seen a couple people on Twitter have jokingly replied @FBI or @CapitolPolice. But this is all in good fun,” Bodach said on Sunday. “We’re not going to be anywhere close to the Capitol, just in view of it. All we’re going to do is throw snow, I don’t think it’s nearly as problematic as what happened earlier.”
The security measures also blocked a beloved, but controversial, Capitol Hill pastime: sledding down the hill near the West Front of the Capitol.
Sledding on Capitol grounds was only officially permitted in recent years after Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., secured language in a fiscal 2016 spending bill report that stated Capitol Police should consider “the family-style neighborhood that the Capitol shares with the surrounding community” and not enforce an existing ban.
“Every year I make sure sledding is allowed on Capitol Hill, but sadly DC’s best place to sled won’t be open tomorrow due to security measures already in place ahead of the inauguration,” Norton posted to X on Monday.
It wasn’t the first time local kids were disappointed. When snow fell just a few weeks after the mob attack of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Police announced they would not be welcoming sledders, pointing to security concerns, the pandemic and work to dismantle the platform constructed for Joe Biden’s inauguration.
This report has been corrected to accurately quote Nate Wetter Taylor.
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