Bowman spokesman Marcus Frias announced in a statement that the lawmaker — who represents the north Bronx, Yonkers, and most of south Westchester County — took part in a “voting rights non-violent direct action at the North Barricade of the U.S. Capitol Building and was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police.”
Frias continued that Bowman’s office would have more information as it became available.
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Capitol Police announced that they had repeatedly warned demonstrators not to block the north barricade of the Capitol complex before making the arrests around noon.
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“Just before 12:00 pm, demonstrators started blocking one side of the North Barricade outside the U.S. Capitol,” they tweeted. “We have already issued them three warnings. The demonstrators refused to move out of the driveway, so we are making arrests.”
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Bowman and 27 others were charged with “Crowding, Obstructing or Incommoding.” A 28th person was blamed for violating Capitol Police crowd control regulations.
The demonstration occurred one day after Senate Democrats failed to garner the support required to make an exception to the filibuster rule to force the voting bills through the chamber. Moderate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona voted with all 50 Republicans to keep the present rules in place.
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Bowman, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has been vocal in his calls for the Senate to scrap the filibuster and pass the election legislation. One demonstrator who was arrested Thursday held a sign that stated: “Justice matters more than Senate rules.”
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Democrats claim that reform is needed because of new voting laws in some GOP-led states that activists claim disenfranchise minority voters. Republicans trashed the legislation as an unconstitutional power grab by Democrats who wish to federalize the election method.
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Meanwhile, the current rules require 60 votes to end a filibuster, a figure that was out of reach for Democrats in the evenly split Senate amid staunch Republican opposition to the voting legislation.
Despite Manchin and Sinema repeating their resistance to changing the filibuster rule, Schumer insisted on getting every senator on the record regarding his doomed effort.
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“Make no mistake, win, lose, or draw, members of this chamber were elected to debate and to vote, particularly on such an important issue as this,” Schumer announced on the Senate floor Wednesday morning. “And win, lose, or draw, we are going to vote.”
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Top Democrats, including President Biden, had ramped up pressure on Manchin, Sinema, and other possible holdouts for weeks, declaring the one-time carve-out to the 60-vote rule was required to, as Schumer put it, “protect the cornerstone of our democracy.”
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