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Opening Panel Round

: waitwait.npr.org. Right now, panel, time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Maz, after the events in Arizona last weekend, many are stepping up to make sure our lawmakers in Washington are safe. Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, has a plan to make sure our congresspeople are protected. What is it?

MAZ JOBRANI: More security?

: More security of a particular kind.

JOBRANI: Armed?

: No, no, no, no, it's more of a - it's sort of like the boy in the bubble except now it's lots of white guys in a bubble.

JOBRANI: Put them behind bulletproof vests and glass and glassy, vesty looking.

: Glassy. Well somewhere in there you said it. What he wants to do is he wants to encase the House chambers in a Plexiglas bubble.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

: As the old saying goes, if it's good enough for the liquor store on 125th Street, it's good enough for the House of Representatives.

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(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

MO ROCCA: An actual dome?

AMY DICKINSON: You know...

: Well not so much a dome, but I believe the idea is, you know, you go into the House chambers and there's the viewing thing.

ROCCA: Yeah.

: And then there's the chambers. He wants to put up a Plexiglas wall between the viewing area and the actual chambers.

DICKINSON: Isn't that like a sneeze guard really?

: Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: A giant sneeze guard.

: Think of the House of Representatives as a giant buffet.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

: Some say the move is impractical. It'll constrict the legislative activities. But Burton says congressmen will still be able to move freely around Washington via a series of interconnected clear plastic tubes.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: Like mole rats at the zoo.

: Exactly.

ROCCA: The Congressional Habitrail.

DICKINSON: Perfect.

: Yeah. And they'll be able to keep trim on the Legislator Wheel.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

: Caretakers will have to be cautious when they change the bedding of wood shavings, though, not to pick up Dennis Kucinich and throw him out with it. No, he likes to burrow. He does.

DICKINSON: He does.

: He does.

DICKINSON: He's a burrower.

ROCCA: It's like a congress theater. Terrible if they all suffocated. Yeah, have to remember to ventilate it.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: All that hot air.

: You can only take the congressman home, Timmy, if you remember to punch holes in the shoebox.

ROCCA: Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: It would look like a giant snow globe.

ROCCA: Well, you do want to shake it, don't you?

DICKINSON: You do.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.