Max Baucus: “last week on Wednesday, we evacuated the Capitol. At the instruction of the Capitol Police, more than a few Senators and…”

“last week on Wednesday, we evacuated the Capitol. At the instruction of the Capitol Police, more than a few Senators and staff actually ran from this building and surrounding offices in the very real fear that a plane was carrying a bomb to attack this building, the center of our democracy. Sadly, Wednesday was not the first time, and Wednesday will likely not be the last time, that we guard against threats to our democracy by plane or by bomb. But there are other threats to our democracy and our freedoms just as menacing, equally as dangerous. Abraham Lincoln said: America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin said: It is not slogans or bullets, but only institutions that can make and keep people free. And Baron Montesquieu wrote in ``The Spirit of the Laws'': There is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and the executive. The effort to break the rules to allow the President more easily to appoint judges that undermine the independence of the Federal judiciary is no less than a threat to our democracy, a threat to our freedoms, and a threat to our liberties. For two centuries, Democrats and Republicans alike have used the Senate's rules to protect our democracy, to protect our freedoms, and to protect our liberties. After two centuries, it would be a mistake to change those rules.…”