The fire alarm, which Bowman's office suggested was unintentional, came as Democrats were trying to delay a vote after Republicans rushed to pass the stopgap measure.
Two points for anyone who hasn’t read the article:
He pulled the fire alarm to delay the vote so that legislators had time to read what they were voting on - Republicans wanted to ram through a vote without waiting the agreed 72h to allow anyone to read the bill.
And:
Legislators are immune from prosecution of any crime less than a felony while they’re in session, so pulling the fire alarm doesn’t matter anyway. No one can touch this dude for this, the worst they can do is make angry noises on TV.
It depends on the system. I install access control stuff. We use unpowered pneumatic timer buttons to open the doors in an emergency (they have to keep the door open for a certain number of seconds when pushed once), and they are indeed big and red with white text on them, shaped like a mushroom you can just slap with your hand. Often the fire alarm is also tied into the access control, so if the fire alarm is going off, the door will be open anyway. There’s a relay from the fire alarm that triggers a special input on the access control panel.
Then why did he lie and say it was unintentional and he didn’t know it would cause an alarm? If he’d just admitted it and given his reasons I could’ve respected that.
“But I want to be very clear, this was not me, in any way, trying to delay any vote. It was the exact opposite – I was trying urgently to get to a vote, which I ultimately did and joined my colleagues in a bipartisan effort to keep our government open,” he added."
Legislators are immune from prosecution of any crime less than a felony while they’re in session, so pulling the fire alarm doesn’t matter anyway. No one can touch this dude for this, the worst they can do is make angry noises on TV.
Technically speaking, if this was indeed an attempt to delay or stop a vote on the bill, it could be a felony. Obstruction of an official proceeding – the same charge many Jan 6 defendants got.
Two points for anyone who hasn’t read the article:
He pulled the fire alarm to delay the vote so that legislators had time to read what they were voting on - Republicans wanted to ram through a vote without waiting the agreed 72h to allow anyone to read the bill.
And:
Legislators are immune from prosecution of any crime less than a felony while they’re in session, so pulling the fire alarm doesn’t matter anyway. No one can touch this dude for this, the worst they can do is make angry noises on TV.
Removed by mod
It depends on the system. I install access control stuff. We use unpowered pneumatic timer buttons to open the doors in an emergency (they have to keep the door open for a certain number of seconds when pushed once), and they are indeed big and red with white text on them, shaped like a mushroom you can just slap with your hand. Often the fire alarm is also tied into the access control, so if the fire alarm is going off, the door will be open anyway. There’s a relay from the fire alarm that triggers a special input on the access control panel.
Then why did he lie and say it was unintentional and he didn’t know it would cause an alarm? If he’d just admitted it and given his reasons I could’ve respected that.
“But I want to be very clear, this was not me, in any way, trying to delay any vote. It was the exact opposite – I was trying urgently to get to a vote, which I ultimately did and joined my colleagues in a bipartisan effort to keep our government open,” he added."
Plausible deniability. If it was claimed to be an accident there’s no one who can honestly do anything .
I support the given reason for delaying the vote, but that denial was not plausible.
Fair
Technically speaking, if this was indeed an attempt to delay or stop a vote on the bill, it could be a felony. Obstruction of an official proceeding – the same charge many Jan 6 defendants got.