Terminated federal workers have been organizing weekly protests inside the Capitol to share their stories and ask senators to defend them and the work they do on behalf of the American people.
On Tuesday, more than a dozen federal employees and contractors — some recently fired and others put on administrative leave — called out to senators in the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building as the lawmakers hustled to catch an underground electric train to the Capitol.
The grass-roots lobbying effort on Capitol Hill, which started in late February and has ballooned over the last several weeks, is the latest attempt by civil servants to push back as the Trump administration and Elon Musk work to cull the ranks of the federal work force.
Among the fired workers at the Dirksen Building on Tuesday was Lexi Smith, a health communications researcher with the Food and Drug Administration, who learned at 5 a.m. that she would lose her job as part of mass layoffs within the Department of Health and Human Services. Her team, which was largely dismantled on Tuesday, was responsible for telling the public about any changes to a drug’s safety information, such as when a label is updated with newly identified risks or side effects.
“I came here because I don’t know what else to do,” said Ms. Smith, who lives in Washington. She learned about the protest from a colleague, who heard about it through a Signal group. “It doesn’t feel like anyone is going to stand up, and so I’m going to come tell my story to stand up for myself.”
The senators’ reactions were largely divided along party lines. Most Democrats who walked by the group stopped to listen, share encouragement and thank the workers for their service.