(Washington) A Democratic parliamentarian in the United States was fined after admitting to intentionally setting off an alarm in Congress, forcing the building to be evacuated while an important vote was to be held.
Jamaal Bowman admitted the facts Wednesday in a Washington court where he agreed to pay a $1,000 fine and write a letter of apology to law enforcement in exchange for dropping charges against him, according to court documents and a press release from this elected official from a federal constituency in the State of New York.
Bowman, a 47-year-old former school principal, said he was rushing to the House of Representatives to watch the Sept. 30 vote on legislation aimed at averting a federal budget shutdown when he rang an alarm to open a door he couldn’t get through.
The events were captured by a video surveillance camera. The building had been evacuated for an hour.
The Republicans, the majority in the House of Representatives, one of the two chambers of Congress with the Senate, accuse him of having knowingly wanted to prevent the vote and have undertaken to deprive him of his roles in parliamentary committees.
Known for his progressive positions and verbal sparring with his Republican adversaries in the halls of Congress, Mr. Bowman said he was grateful that the police concluded that he had “not obstructed or intended to obstruct to a vote or operations of the House of Representatives.
The head of the Democratic parliamentary group in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, for his part castigated the Republicans criticizing Jamaal Bowman when they had “defended or refused to comment on the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021” by supporters of Donald Trump to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.