Congressional staffers took a remarkable step Monday: They protested their bosses, occupying Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office to urge Democrats to continue negotiations on climate legislation.
Six Chamber employees were arrested, out of the 17 assistants involved in the protest. While this is a small protest by DC standards, where marches or actions can draw tens of thousands, it’s a pretty big move for congressional workers who have never done anything like this before.
The demonstration underscores frustration within the Democratic Party over the lack of action to address the climate crisis.
“We staged the protest because we are in an absolute emergency and we have exhausted our usual options,” said Saul Levin, a Democratic aide who is a member of the Congressional Progressive Staff Association. Levin, who was arrested on Monday, coordinates the association’s Climate Working Group.
“Tek[ocratic] Leaders have also exhausted their usual options, but we are asking them to continue negotiations with more vigor than ever, as if they would live the climate crisis as we will,” Levin said in a direct message on Twitter. .
Despite their front-row seat in the legislative process, congressional staffers tend to keep their criticisms out of the public eye. But earlier this month, when West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin rejected a sweeping spending bill to cut planet-warming pollution, that discretion went out the window for some aides.
“Hopefully doing something unusual on an urgent basis will inspire [lawmakers] to do the same,” Levin said.
Two hundred employees also signed their initials to a letter sent earlier this month to Democratic leadership calling for clean energy and climate legislation.
Although unusual, it is not unheard of for congressional staffers to use their positions to speak out. One hundred congressional staffers gathered on the steps of the House of Representatives in 2014 to silently protest police brutality after officers killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in New York.
However, Daniel Holt, an assistant historian for the US Senate Historical Office, said he was unable to find other examples of staff involved in protests at the Capitol or in adjacent office buildings.
The legislative inertia comes as the reality of the climate crisis is spreading across the country and the world in the form of brutal heat waves, wildfires, melting glaciers and floods.
More than 100 million Americans were under heat advisories or warnings this past weekend, and a record amount of rain caused flash flooding in the greater St. Louis area. Climate scientists agree that unless the world can significantly reduce its carbon pollution, these natural disasters will only increase in frequency and intensity.
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