Inouye adjusting to new role

From The Hill July 9, 2010

Senate President Pro Tem Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has a bunch of new friends who have started following him around the clock.

It’s part of his ascension to president pro tempore of the Senate, which means he’s third in line to the presidency and has a 16-member U.S. Capitol Police security detail.

The eight-term lawmaker took over the role last week upon the death of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). The position goes to the most senior lawmaker in the chamber.

Inouye is in Hawaii during the congressional recess, and that’s where he found himself confronted with the awkward new reality. At a field hearing of the Appropriations Committee that he chairs, eight Capitol Police officers who had traveled to Honolulu lined the conference room in the State Capitol along with three state sheriff’s deputies.

After the meeting, Inouye was surrounded by the officers and hustled into a four-vehicle convoy. Their destination: lunch at a low-key restaurant called Zippy’s where Inouye likes to eat chili and rice. The officers surveyed the restaurant before Inouye’s arrival and watched over him as he ate.

Inouye told a Honolulu TV station he was unprepared for the sudden change, and joked the officers were “casing” his favorite restaurant. To another local TV reporter, he praised the officers as “good people,” but acknowledged the change was “not fun.”

Inouye spokeswoman Lori Yamamoto said the senator is “adjusting.”

“It is quite a change from what he had been accustomed to, but he is adjusting to his new life, and understands that it comes with the role,” Yamamoto told The Hill.

Inouye, a decorated World War II hero, is 85 and, with Byrd’s death, the longest-serving living senator. He is also the second-eldest, behind 86-year-old Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

The position of Senate president pro tempore is largely ceremonial, but there are legislative duties — it’s the president pro tem who signs passed legislation, not the majority leader. Generally, the senators who’ve held the position have determined how active they want the office to be, and how large of a staff they want.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer told The Hill his office is obligated to protect Inouye, but said he understands the change is difficult.

“We do constant evaluations of threats, we keep track of their whereabouts and provide enough security to make sure that nothing happens to them,” Gainer said.

“When one is not used to security and having them around, there’s an adjustment period. So it’s a growing process where the protectee gets used to it and our officers and agents providing the protection understand their limits of what they can and cannot do.”

The change was immediate: Inouye was sworn in as president pro tempore less than 12 hours after Byrd’s death, at 2 p.m. last Monday. Later that afternoon, guards started trailing the senator and took up positions outside his office door on the Senate’s first floor.

Since the position puts Inouye behind Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the presidency, Inouye’s new title carries certain new do’s and don’ts. He is no longer allowed to attend State of the Union addresses, for instance, for fear that the country’s top four leaders could be simultaneously stricken in a mass attack.

“They hide them in some cave,” Inouye said in Hawaii. “That’s how life has changed.”