Capitol Dome to Get Its First Face-Lift in More Than 50 Years

Weather and plain old age have left the Capitol dome with more than 1,000 cracks and deficiencies like stains and rust, the architect of the Capitol said in a statement on Tuesday.

Scaffolding will go up next month as crews begin a $60 million effort over several years to restore the Capitol to its “original, inspiring splendor,” said Stephen T. Ayers, the architect of the Capitol.

Restoration of the #CapitolDome begins in November. Dome will be scaffolded for 2 yrs. How it will look: pic.twitter.com/wKFcpF7AAa

â€" U.S. Capitol (@uscapitol) October 22, 2013

“As stewards of the Capitol for the Congress and the American people, we must conduct this critical work to save the dome,” Mr. Ayers said. “From a distance the dome looks magnificent, thanks to the hard work of our employees. On closer look, under the paint, age and weather have taken its toll, and the A.O.C. needs to make repairs to preserve the dome.”

The cast iron dome was built during the Civil War and last had a face-lift in 1959 and 1960. The “consistent bombardment of the natural elements” has allowed water to seep through the laminate coating of the dome, causing rust and stains that threaten the artwork inside, Eugene Poole, the project manager, said in a video that was released with the statement. Officials said they had identified almost 1,300 deficiencies and had collected hundreds of pieces of debris that had fallen from the dome and that they hoped to reattach.

The Rotunda will remain open, but tours of the dome will be canceled until the renovations are complete. Most of the work will be done on nights and weekends to prevent disruptions.

Workers will repair the cracks using a “lock-and-stitch” technique that involves filling the cracks with metal pins and installing locks to pull the sides of the cracks together and add strength.

The public can expect parts of the Capitol to look like a construction zone over the next two years. The dome will be surrounded by scaffolding from the base of the Statue of Freedom to the top of the dome skirt. Scaffold towers and bridging will also be erected on the west side of the Capitol to help move materials to the work areas. A doughnut-shaped canopy and a covered walkway will be installed inside the Capitol Rotunda to protect the public while still allowing visitors to see the “Apotheosis of Washington,” the famous painting of George Washington in the eye of the Rotunda.

The work on the Capitol means that, for a while at least, two Washington landmarks will be surrounded by scaffolding. The Washington Monument is currently wrapped in a lighted scaffold skeleton while damage caused by the 2011 earthquake is being repaired.

Most Latinos Do Not See a National Leader, Poll Finds

A majority of Latinos in the United States say they need a national leader to promote their interests but cannot identify anyone who fits that bill, according to a survey published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project.

When asked to name “the most important Hispanic leader in the country today,” 62 percent of Latinos in the survey said they did not know, and another 9 percent answered “no one.”

Of the two people most frequently mentioned as the most important Hispanic leader, one â€" Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is Puerto Rican â€" is not a politician. The other is Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who is Cuban-American. They were each mentioned by 5 percent of Latinos participating in the survey.

Other politicians mentioned were the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, a Mexican-American Democrat who was mentioned by 3 percent of those in the poll, and Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a Puerto Rican Democrat who has been very active promoting legislation to overhaul the immigration system. He was mentioned by 2 percent.

The survey was conducted before Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican who is Cuban-American, gained more prominence by leading the effort to shut down the federal government in an attempt to strip funding from President Obama’s health care bill. The national survey was conducted using landlines and cellphones from May 24 to July 28 in both English and Spanish among a sample of 5,103 Latino adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Latinos are the largest minority and a fast-growing group, accounting for more than half the country’s population growth from 2000 to 2010. They increased their turnout in every presidential election since 1996. They voted overwhelmingly in 2012 to re-elect President Obama, and recent polls show they are growing increasingly negative toward the Republican Party.

The report also provides a portrait of diversity among the country’s 53 million Latinos that has not coalesced into a strong unified national identity. In the survey, only 4 in 10 Latinos said people from different national origins â€" coming from Mexico, Puerto Rico or Cuba, for example â€" share “a lot” of common values, while another 4 in 10 said they share “some” values.

But the Pew report points to opportunities for Hispanics from either party, showing that 74 percent of those polled believe they need a leader who speaks for them, and many express a strong sense of identity both as Hispanics and as Americans.

Among Dominican Latinos, for example, 66 percent describe themselves primarily as Dominicans rather than Latinos or Hispanics. At the same time, 53 percent of Dominicans think of themselves as “a typical American,” according to Pew. Among Cuban Latinos, 63 percent describe themselves most often as Cubans, while 55 percent think of themselves as typical Americans. Fully two-thirds of Hispanics born in the United States describe themselves as typical Americans.

Mr. Rubio gets a boost from the voters in Florida, where 70 percent of Cubans in the United States reside. In the survey, 25 percent of Cubans mentioned Mr. Rubio as the most important Hispanic leader.

Also mentioned â€" by fewer than 2 percent of those polled â€" were Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a Cuban-American Democrat; Jorge Ramos, a Mexican-American who is an anchor of Univision television; and Mr. Obama - even though he is not Latino.