you remember this chaos on January 6th well the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service are involved right now to make sure this doesn't happen again and we are going to be paying for it DHS just announced for the first time ever the counting of electoral votes by Congress on January 6 2025 is now going to be designated as a national special security event that's significant for a few reasons one designating something as a naal special security event is usually reserved for only events with the highest national significance like the presidential inauguration the Super Bowl the United Nations General Assembly meeting the RNC the DNC right these big huge events where tons of people are going to be there and the eyes of the United States are watching two this is significant because this is the first time ever January 6th is getting this kind of designation look before January 6th 2021 the counting of electoral votes by Congress was a pretty boring event most Americans didn't even know what was going on of course for us political nerds it was interesting to watch and we knew it was happening and there was always some kind of lawmaker challenging a slate of electors but it was never a question of what the outcome was going to be but that all changed in 2021 and because of the riot at the capital last time around and the fact that lawmakers had to evacuate Homeland Security isn't taking any more chances so according to this announcement secret service will be in charge of this whole Security operation but they will be collaborating with federal state and local law enforcement Partners to develop and Implement what they call a comprehensive Integrated Security plan to ensure not only the security of the capital building and the surrounding areas but also a plan to ensure the security of the lawmakers who are inside that building doing their constitutional duty of counting electoral votes so what is this Security operation going to look like more fencing more law enforcement National Guards troops like how much is this thing going to cost the taxpayers we don't know the answers to those questions yet but Secret Service says the formal planning process is already underway with the leadership and then the other federal state and local law enforcement and Public Safety Partners will be looped in in the coming weeks so they're preparing for this early and in the end it's going to be up to Congress to allocate the money necessary for this operation before the government is scheduled to shut down in less than 3 weeks