1. United States
2. Alaska
3. Letter

Co-sponsor the PRESERVE Act, introduced by Reps. Titus and Doggett, and push to repeal the Ernst amendment mandating the sale of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building. That building holds Ben Shahn frescoes — work Shahn himself called "the best work I've done" — alongside murals by Philip Guston and Seymour Fogel. Architectural historian Gray Brechin has called it "a kind of Sistine Chapel of the New Deal." The Trump administration was collecting demolition bids as recently as last fall. The PRESERVE Act would require GSA to identify protected art before any disposal, form a preservation committee, and certify to Congress that artwork will remain publicly accessible before any sale or demolition proceeds. It covers all 26,000 pieces in GSA's Fine Arts Collection. That's a serious safeguard. But the Ernst amendment — inserted into a water resources bill with no apparent awareness that the Cohen building contained significant art — still mandates the sale. The PRESERVE Act doesn't fix that. Congress needs to repeal it. This art belongs to the public. It was paid for with public money during the New Deal, it has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2007, and it cannot be replaced. Co-sponsor PRESERVE and go further: repeal the Ernst amendment before this building and everything inside it is gone.