Fired federal workers lobby for help on Capitol Hill – is anyone listening?
They had often been told no over the past months – when the government moved to fire them with Donald Trump's blessing, when judges rejected challenges to that decision and when the lawmakers who they have taken to tracking down on Capitol Hill once a week when Congress is in session would turn a deaf ear to their pleas.
More than 59,000 federal workers have lost their jobs since Trump took office, according to government data, but those in power have not changed their tune.
This Tuesday morning, it was staffers of Maine's Republican senator Susan Collins who had told them no, even after they staged an impromptu sit-in in her office for the better part of a half hour. So they proceeded five floors down to the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, hoping that some senator – any senator – would give them a moment of their time.
Then the elevator doors opened and who should come out but Collins. 'Senator Collins!' someone in the group yelled. Another tried to introduce themselves: 'I'm a fired federal worker.' But the senator began waving her hands in front of her in an unmistakable sign of: I don't have time for this.
'Thank you,' Collins said, as she made her way down the hall.
'It's somewhat typical,' observed Whitt Masters, a former USAID contractor who has been unemployed since the end of March, when the company employing him decided to file for bankruptcy after its client began to shut down.
'You know, I don't expect every senator to stop and speak with us. I wish she'd been a bit more approachable, especially since we had spent some time in her office earlier today.'
What's been dubbed the Tuesday Group has come around the Capitol since mid-February, as Trump and Elon Musk's campaign to thin out the federal workforce began to bite. Some who show up have been fired, others are on paid leave while a judge considers whether it is legal to fire them, and those who work for USAID expect to officially lose their jobs next Tuesday, when the agency shuts down.
Democrats often welcome them, but when it comes to the Republicans who control Congress – and are weighing legislation to codify some cuts and make deeper ones in the next fiscal year – the reception has been uneven. They've been ignored, blown off and belittled – all things they would experience last Tuesday, their 17th visit to the Hill.
Their encounter with Collins fruitless, the group formed something of a gauntlet at the intersection of a hallway leading between office buildings and to the Senate subway, a place where lawmakers were sure to pass on a scorcher of a day.
They would call out to any face they recognized, but the group of 10 was nothing a determined senator couldn't handle. Montana Republican Tim Sheehy speed-walked by with a reporter and cameraman in pursuit; Washington Democrat Patty Murray pounded past in sneakers; and Arkansas Republican John Boozman ambled through alone, displaying no sign that he knew the group was even there.
'Would you like to hear how we are impacting your constituents?' asked Stephie Duliepre, who was fired from her Science for Development fellowship program at USAID, when Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn came around the corner. The senator pushed on, the answer apparently being no.
John Hoeven, a Republican from North Dakota, exited a stairwell that deposited him right in the middle of the group. He appeared to recognize them – on a previous visit, attendees said that Hoeven had discussed his support for folding a major USAID food assistance program into the state department. 'I see you're still working on it,' he quipped, before heading off.
The Democrats they encountered uttered words of encouragement, and a few stopped to talk. 'Don't give up,' Dick Durbin of Illinois said when he encountered the group. 'I'm with you,' Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin called out.
South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham attempted the silent treatment as he came past, but Amelia Hertzberg, who was on administrative leave from her job in the Environmental Protection Agency, was not having it. She followed him down the hall, and started prancing around to get his attention.
'You have a bright future,' Hertzberg recalls the senator saying. 'Well, I was going to have a bright future, and then I was fired,' she replied.
The group spotted Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican and prominent Trump ally. 'Senator Hawley, these are fired federal workers. Do you have a second to talk to them?' asked Melissa Byrne, a community organizer who had put together the group.
'No,' he replied.
The group was aghast, but they'd been treated worse. When Mack Schroeder encountered Indiana Republican Jim Banks one Tuesday and introduced himself as having been fired from the Department of Health and Human Services, the senator replied, 'You probably deserved it,' before calling him 'a clown'.
That was in April. The incident made the news, Banks refused to apologize, and the Tuesday Group kept showing up.
'I've spoken to the media and been on the radio. I've called my senators, my representatives, and it feels a little bit like shouting into a void,' said Hertzberg, who has made about 12 visits to the Capitol now.
'So it feels good to go into senator's offices and be there and take up space for a while and make them see, or their staff see that there is a person behind all this.'
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