Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) is in his second term as a member of the House. His bio on X, formerly Twitter, notes that Bowman is a "life long educator" and a "former middle school principal" who sees his role as "causing good trouble."
The phrase "good trouble," of course, comes from the late Rep. John Lewis, who described his civil rights activism in the 1960s, in which he was famously beaten and arrested, as causing "good trouble" — that is, making trouble for a good cause.
Over the weekend, the world got a glimpse of the kind of trouble Bowman can cause, and it was most certainly not good. On Saturday, while members of the House worked feverishly on a plan to avoid a government shutdown, Bowman sought to derail a vote on the measure, which he said would "make more dangerous cuts to lifesaving programs." But what to do?
Set off a fire alarm. As the vote approached, a fire alarm sounded in the Cannon House Office Building. The building was evacuated. All business being conducted inside came to a halt while firefighters looked for the fire. But there was no fire. Someone had pulled a false alarm.
Not long later, Capitol Police released a screenshot from a surveillance video of a man pulling the alarm. The man was Bowman. Had he really done that? Had he really set off the alarm knowing full well there was no fire? And isn't that a crime? The answers were yes, yes, and yes.
A short time after, Bowman confessed but said it had all been a mistake. He was really trying to get to the vote, not delay it, and he thought that the red handle that said "FIRE" on it would open the door he wanted to go through. "I want to personally clear up confusion surrounding today's events," Bowman said in a statement. "Today, as I was rushing to make a vote, I came to a door that is usually open for votes but today would not open. I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door. I regret this and sincerely apologize for any confusion this caused."
Bowman's Republican colleagues were, to put it mildly, skeptical. Was Bowman really saying that he did not know that the red handle that said FIRE, identical to the other fire alarms in the Capitol, was not in fact a fire alarm? Indeed, he was. Bowman continued: "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. I also met after the vote with the Sergeant at Arms and the Capitol Police, at their request, and explained what had happened. My hope is that no one will make more of this than it was."
Actually, what it was, was pretty bad. More could be known if the police would release the full surveillance video of the incident. If Bowman's defense is true, he would have been startled to hear the fire alarm sound when he was just trying to open the door. Perhaps that would be visible in the video. But so far, all we have seen is the screenshot.
Now the incident is under investigation both by the Capitol Police and the House Administration Committee. There are a lot of things that are against the law in the Capitol and related buildings. First, there is the law against obstructing a government proceeding, covering "whoever corruptly ... obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding or attempts to do so." Then there is the law against disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. And, of course, falsely setting off a fire alarm is a crime in Washington, D.C.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is urging lawmakers to wait until the investigations are complete before taking any action against Bowman. But McCarthy seems to have a clear idea of what happened. "This is a former principal — he knows what a fire alarm is," McCarthy told Fox News Monday morning. "If it really was just an accident, when the Capitol Police came to interview you, why would you lawyer up right away?"
Asked whether he, McCarthy, believed Bowman knew what he was doing, McCarthy said, "If you know this individual, everybody knows."
(COMMENT, BELOW)