Metal detectors first installed outside the House chamber after the January 6 Capitol protests were removed Tuesday as Republicans took control of the lower chamber.
Then–Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) ordered the installment of the machines after the riot and later threatened lawmakers who did not comply with the security measure to pay a $5,000 fine for a first offense and $10,000 for a second.
“It is tragic that this step is necessary, but the chamber of the People’s House must and will be safe,” she said at the time.
Pelosi’s rules led to outcry from several Republican members, including Representatives Louie Gohmert of Texas and Andrew Clyde of Georgia. After they were both fined under Pelosi’s policy, they filed a federal lawsuit in 2021 claiming that the use of metal detectors to screen members of Congress was unconstitutional. However, a federal judge upheld the fines.
Representative Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.), another outspoken critic of the metal detectors, cheered their removal on Tuesday.
“When I arrived in Congress two years, Nancy Pelosi put this hunk of garbage outside of the House chambers for members of Congress to go through,” Boebert said in a video posted to Twitter. “Today, they are being removed and we are turning Pelosi’s House back into the people’s House.”
Boebert clashed with Capitol Police when the metal detectors were first installed: She would not allow them to search her bag after it set off the detector’s alarm.
“I am legally permitted to carry my firearm in Washington, D.C., and within the Capitol complex,” she said at the time. “Metal detectors outside of the House would not have stopped the violence we saw last week — it’s just another political stunt by Speaker Pelosi.”