The left’s civil war over Chuck Schumer just moved into his own office. Dozens of activists with the Sunrise Movement, the youth climate group, were arrested Thursday after staging a sit-in inside the Senate Democratic leader’s Washington office and demanding that he step aside.
According to the Sunrise Movement, 54 people were arrested out of a few hundred who joined the protest from across the country, including some from New York, the state Schumer represents, The Guardian reported. The arrest figure comes from the group itself, not from police.
“Schumer has got to go!”
Protesters sat on the office floor chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Schumer has got to go!” Their signs read “The filibuster kills” and “Schumer: Step up or step aside.”
The group’s two demands were blunt: a new Senate Democratic leader and the abolition of the filibuster, the Senate rule that lets a minority of senators block most bills unless 60 of 100 vote to move ahead. Sunrise said another 150 activists visited other Senate Democratic offices on Capitol Hill to deliver the same message.
“Has-been leadership”
Sunrise executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay, 28, made clear the group sees last week’s Democratic wins as a mandate to push the party much further left.
“Chuck Schumer has been in Congress longer than I have been alive. Young people voted in droves for change in this country,” Shiney-Ajay said in a statement released by the group. “We won’t get that with has-been leadership and a logjam filibuster.”
In the same statement, the group listed its wish list: a Green New Deal, an end to the Iran war and new limits on data centers, among other demands.
The group is now fundraising $24,000 on Instagram to cover bail and potential legal fees for those arrested, according to The Guardian.
Connected to the new class in Congress
The Sunrise Movement isn’t a fringe outfit on the sidelines. It was co-founded by incoming Rep. William Lawrence, and Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed previously served on its board, according to the group’s own statement reported by Lansing City Pulse. Sunrise also says it made nearly a million voter contact attempts in states including Michigan, Maine and Texas during the midterms.
Pressure before the leadership vote
The sit-in shows how much pressure Schumer is under from his own side as Senate Democrats get ready to pick their leader for the new Congress, where they will hold the majority starting in January. The Guardian’s report did not include a response from Schumer’s office.
For Democrats, it’s an awkward picture: barely a week after their midterm wins, the party’s own activist base is getting hauled out of the office of its top senator.
Reporting by The Guardian, with details from Sunrise Movement statements reported by Lansing City Pulse.