90ish days of summer

Let me say this not as a photojournalism student or member of the press, but as an American citizen and taxpayer: I am deeply disappointed in the way tours and access are handled at the U.S. Capitol Building and the Library of Congress‘ Jefferson building.

You can’t do or see anything in either complex without having to register for a tour.

Maybe that’s something to be expected in this day and age, but such restriction was certainly something I didn’t anticipate at all.

Some quick backstory: Besides a three-day college-search stint in fall 2005, the last times I’d been in D.C. were summer 2001 (pre-9/11) and spring 2002. The 2001 trip was a two-week blowout wherein my family and I did touristy things for a week in D.C. and then for a week in New York City. The 2002 trip was with my eighth grade class and included the same touristy things I’d done the previous summer.

Even though those trips were seven or eight years ago, I had/have no desire to redo those tours — and neither did/does Jeff. We just want(ed) to take our time around the building and see what there is to see. So last night, I made sure to check the visitors center Web site and saw this in the FAQ:

Do I have to take a tour of the historic Capitol to enter the Capitol Visitor Center?
No, the Visitor Center is a public access building and you do not need a tour ticket to enter.

“Great!” I said. “We can just enter via the visitor center and take our time around the Capitol. None of that tour silliness.”

But when we arrived at the visitors center around 3:30 p.m., a staffer said we could access the actual Capitol Building only if we were on a tour — and the last one for the day was pretty much booked and about to leave.

What the hell.

We looked around the Exhibition Hall and gift shop — the only places we could access without getting a tour — and promptly left. Maybe the Library of Congress would have a better policy about not having to be on tours.

Wrong.

I can’t find any such information on the Library’s tour Web pages, but as far as Jeff and I could tell, you can see almost nothing of the actual Library (Jefferson building) unless you are on a tour.

Okay — we had access to the Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz, as well as some second-story exhibitions. But I wanted to see far more than that, and of course the last tour had already departed.

And okay — the FAQ said the visitor center is a public access building and didn’t include the Capitol Building itself in that capacity. So we’d misinterpolated the FAQ.

And I understand there are probably security concerns, that Capitol police and library security would prefer not to have visitors unregistered with tours wandering around the buildings and that the tours are completely free and very informative.

But still. What the hell.

Both buildings are operated by the United States goverment, funded by taxpayer dollars and of great interest to the general public. As a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, I think such buildings should not be restricted to those who do not want tours.

Everything has completely changed since I visited the Capitol Building in 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Of course visitors still had to get gallery passes from their senator or representative to get into either legislative chamber, but even if you weren’t on a tour, you had almost complete access within the building.

One of my most distinct memories from that gander around the building was when our elevator stopped at a floor before our destination, and then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped on and joined us.

Yep — we were riding the elevator with a former First Lady, a then-senator and current Secretary of State.

Even then, as a 13-year-old completely uninterested in politics, I was in awe and completely thrilled.

Fat chance of that ever happening now. If tour groups now use elevators to get around the building, my guess is they aren’t the same elevators that legislators use. How things have changed since Sept. 11.

Long story short: I want the right to wander around those buildings at my leisure and without unreasonable restriction. I want my public-access buildings back.