I'm sure you can understand that these buildings are old and a lot of systems have been put in place later. So it's not like anything is standardized. I was more on the Senate side, so couldn't tell about the House.
That makes sense, but tbh it didn’t occur to me that, with the amount being spent on the military for instance, that someone hasn’t simply made sure that fire alarms in the US Capitol look like fire alarms, etc, so that you know for certain you’re calling for an elevator and not an evacuation.
Oh, I'm not supporting what the guy says, I'm just trying to explain it.
It could be that the call button and the fire alarm are quite close to each other. When the floor manager told him to hit the call button, he just made a mistake. Doesn't necessarily have to be mischief. On the other hand, Dems were trying to buy time so they could find out what the Senate would do.
Oh, I get that, but if it is a case of mistaken button, I’d be curious to see what they look like, and know why someone hasn’t bothered to clear up that confusion. There has to be money in the budget for it. Buy one less F-35 this year and take care of that.
You got to remember that most of the Capital is stone walled so they used a common wiring duct. So the call buttons have to use that ducting, when they put in the call system, they not only put them where they were needed, but hid them away from people like us. So you can find, most of the time, a small button that looks like a door bell hidden in places like moldings and frames. I wouldn't have any idea what the one closest to the House minority cloak room might look like. Those that call trains are big, I remember that.
The reason they're needed is that members go back to their offices and when a vote is coming up they hit the button. It sends a toned alert to the offices. Then the members scurry to the floor, and as they do they can get priority calls on elevators etc. By hitting a call button.