When the workday was over, Levin met up with Emma Preston, a

legislative assistant to Representative Ro Khanna, of California. They

practiced the trip from the Cannon Building to Schumer’s office in the
Hart Senate Office Building, about half a mile north. So far, about
half a dozen staffers had committed to joining the sit-in. “We could
probably get a bigger crew together if we had more time,” Preston
said. They had decided to do it on Monday, when there were still a
few days before August recess, which left them only Friday and the
weekend to prepare.

The Hart Building looks like the headquarters of the dystopian

megacorporation in “Severance”: marble walls; wide, quiet hallways;
and, in an open atrium, a massive, dark steel sculpture, by Alexander
Calder, called “Mountains and Clouds.” (The sculpture resembles a
mountain range; a mobile, representing the clouds, was removed in
2016, having been deemed structurally unsound. According to a
Capitol Web site, it will be “refabricated and reinstalled as funding
becomes available.”) They found Schumer’s name on a touch-screen
directory and made their way to his corner office. “Dang, this
building,” Preston said. “Our little House buildings could never.”

Afterward, they took the Metro to Columbia Heights, where Levin

lives with five roommates and at least two dogs. Another House
staffer, who described herself as “a former neolib who has, like a lot
of people, been radicalized by all the bullshit,” came over to offer
“emotional and logistical support.” Before continuing to plan the
sit-in, they had to finalize their open letter to President Biden. They
sat next to one another on a dining banquette, laptops arrayed
carefully to fit on a narrow table, and pored over a Google Doc,
incorporating edits from a handful of fellow-staffers. “O.K., we’ve
got ‘negotiate with urgency’ and ‘the urgency this moment demands
in the same sentence,” Preston said.

“ ‘Gumption?’ ” Levin said. “ ‘Discernment?’ ”

“Can we refer to Manchin as a coal baron just one time?” Preston

said.

“I feel like the word ‘commensurate’ should be in there somewhere,”

the third staffer said. “Or maybe just ‘Shit’s really real—why don’t
y’all fucking act like it?’ ”

When they were happy with the letter, they sent a link to hundreds of
Hill staffers, asking them to sign. They also sent it to employees at
several executive agencies, including the Departments of Energy, the
Interior, and Health and Human Services. “The people who signed the
last letter—you might assume they all work for the Squad, but you’d
be surprised,” Preston said. “We had people from pretty moderate
offices, even people who work for leadership. We had staffers coming
to us who aren’t even all that progressive, frankly—they’re just
heartbroken and terrified that nothing is getting done.”

On Saturday night, Levin and his roommates threw a birthday party

for Preston, who was turning twenty-six. (Her birthday is actually in
August, but Preston, like many Hill employees, planned to be out of
town.) On Sunday, they held a training, during which a lawyer
answered questions about potential workplace retaliation and told
staffers what to expect if they got arrested. Also, in Levin’s back yard,
they hosted an “art build,” where staffers and outside volunteers
collaborated on signs and banners. The biggest, a blue banner that
read “Keep negotiating, Chuck!,” was several yards wide but flexible
enough to fold inconspicuously into a backpack. Preston, who was
raised in Council Bluffs, Iowa, painted a red barn, a blue deluge, and
the words “OUR FARMS ARE FLOODING.” Levin made a sign that
said, in its entirety, “TRY.”

On the morning of July 25th, Preston wore a bracelet bearing her

sister’s name and carried a note from her mother in her pocket. Levin
shaved for the occasion (“If this is about youth speaking out, then I
want to look extra youthful”). They walked into the Hart Building
along with fifteen other staffers, all wearing face masks and business
suits. They opened the door to Schumer’s office suite and entered in
single file—passing a “Schumer for Assembly” campaign poster,
from 1974, and a New York Post front page announcing Schumer’s
first election to the Senate, in 1998—while Levin addressed the
staffer at the front desk. “We’re here to encourage Senator Schumer to
reopen negotiations on climate policy,” he said. “So we’re gonna be
sitting in his office today and not leaving.”

“You want to sit here?” the Schumer staffer said. “As a protest?”

“Yep,” Levin said. He glimpsed an open door at the end of a hallway

and led the group in that direction. (“I just saw some
expensive-looking chairs and thought, That’s probably where we want
to be,” Levin said later.) It turned out to be the Majority Leader’s
personal office: photos of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Anchor Bar in
Buffalo, and, on an otherwise empty desk, a name tag reading “Mr.
Schumer.” (The desk once featured two small figurines symbolizing
bipartisanship: an elephant and a donkey, made from lumps of West
Virginia coal, both gifts to Schumer from Manchin.)

“Would you mind sitting in the front office?” the Schumer staffer said,
following the group.
“We’re going to sit here, as a form of civil disobedience,” Aria
Kovalovich, a staffer who advises Representative Khanna on
environmental issues, said.

“I understand,” the Schumer staffer said. “We all have the same
values. Let’s just do it from the front office.” The activist staffers
stayed where they were, occupying Schumer’s couches, armchairs,
and cream-colored rug.

“Anyone have some sweet tunes to put on?” Levin asked.

“I have Bernie performing spoken word,” another protester said.

Instead, they sang labor songs—“Solidarity Forever” and “Which
Side Are You On?”—looking up the lyrics to the later verses on their
phones. When they ran out of songs, they took turns giving speeches
to the group. “This is a breaking point I’ve been waiting for for a
while,” Philip Bennett, a staffer for Representative Ilhan Omar and
the president of the Congressional Workers Union, said. “This next
generation of Hill staffers is unlike any previous generation. Change
is coming.”

The Capitol Police showed up within minutes. “We’re going to give

you three warnings,” an officer said. “If at that point you don’t leave,
it then becomes either trespassing or unlawful entry.” More officers
arrived, until a dozen or so were gathered in the hallway. After about
ten minutes, a supervisor came in and issued a final warning:
“Anyone who does not want to get arrested, now would be the time to
disperse.” The majority of the group got up to leave. Preston, Levin,
Sicora, and three others remained seated. (“I did a lot of journalling
this morning,” Preston said later. “I knew I was ready.”) The cops
came in, and the remaining protesters stood up and waited to be
flex-cuffed. “Guess Chuck really didn’t want to talk about climate
today,” Levin said.
They were loaded into police vans and driven across a parking lot to a
booking center. Two hours later, they were released, with court dates
set for late August. They went to a nearby bar to debrief—the bar was
technically closed, but the owner told them that they could sit on the
patio as long as health inspectors didn’t show up. “O.K., kids, who
wants to catch their second trespassing charge of the day?” Levin
said.

After a while, the group started to break up. Preston, Kovalovich, and
Courtney Koelbel, who works on the House Committee on Oversight
and Reform, headed toward the Cannon Building, looking a bit dazed.
It was already late afternoon; still, their offices were so close, and
they had so much work left to do. Walking north on First Street, they
passed a power box decorated with a poster of John Lewis, the late
representative and civil-rights activist, and the motto he popularized:
“Good Trouble.” Just beyond it was the dome of the Capitol and,
above that, a blue-gray bank of storm clouds. There were still hours to
go before sunset, but the sky above Washington was almost
completely dark. ♦