Capitol Lockdown: New Rules for Today

Today’s events of note I know of . . .
12:00 – Arts WI marches to the capitol from the Concourse
1:00 – Trial Resumes
5:00 – Funeral March from Bascom Hill
5:30 – Rally at State St. Side.

Now, the rules.

To: WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE
From: CAPITOL POLICE
RE: UPDATE: CAPITOL ACCESS
Date: March 2, 2011

Constituent Escorts & Badges
We have been attempting to improve constituent access to legislative offices, as best we can, while maintaining adequate security in the Capitol building. The procedure to allocate eight badges to each legislator’s office has worked fairly well, but there have been problems with escorted visitors discarding their badges while en route to or from legislative offices so they can join visitors in the rotunda. This defeats the purpose of the procedure and we are asking your assistance.

On Monday and Tuesday we utilized staff to assist with escorting visitors, however we received feedback that some representatives felt their staff members were overwhelmed with escort requests. So on Wednesday we attempted to use police instead to facilitate escorts. However, we received feedback that this method also had limitations. Therefore, beginning tomorrow, Thursday, March 3, we are requesting a legislative staff member to meet your constituent visitors at the King Street entrance and escort them to your office along with a law enforcement officer.

Any of your office’s eight badges that are not used for the purpose for which they were issued will be taken from your office’s allotment of badges for the day. Continued loss of badges or abuse of the badges’ intended purpose may further limit the availability of badges for your constituents, and after three incidents your office may forfeit its badge allocation altogether until conditions at the Capitol change.

Thank you for your cooperation with procedures that will allow constituents to continue visits to your office and for us to provide a safe and secure environment in the Capitol.

Key Card Access
As you know, key card access for Capitol staff was disabled on Monday.

We realize that Capitol staff members have been inconvenienced by the disabling of key card access, however this step was made necessary because a small number of staff members were seen to be abusing the key card access system by allowing some visitors to bypass building entry procedures.

If Capitol staff members can demonstrate they are willing to follow the procedures for building access that are currently in effect, we will consider temporarily restoring key card access and will monitor compliance to determine whether key card access can be permanently restored.

Arrangements for Lobby Days and Similar Events
The following plans for lobby days and similar events have been established to be in keeping with the existing queuing and badging procedures. Lobby groups that wish to meet with legislators should reserve a hearing room via a legislator. Lobby group members will queue and be badged at the King Street entrance as are all other visitors, and will be escorted to their reserved hearing room. Because non-staff are not currently permitted free rein of the building, legislators will need to visit lobby groups in the hearing room (rather than the typical practice of lobby group members traveling from one legislator’s office to another). Lobby groups may choose instead to visit individual legislators via the Constituency Visit procedures listed above, but must return their original badges to the King Street doors and obtain new badges prior to visiting a subsequent office. Groups may also wish to consider hosting lobby days and similar events at a location other than the capitol if these access procedures are expected to result in undue inconvenience to attendees.