Democrats spent more than $20 million last year to end then-Rep. Lori Chavez-Dellemer’s legislative career. But now the Republicans they worked so hard to defeat are the favorite candidates for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
President Trump’s choice of Chavez Delemer as labor secretary was a surprise to many Democrats and others who had hoped that Trump would follow in the footsteps of past Republican presidents and nominate a conservative figure hostile to organized labor. It was a pleasant surprise for union leaders. But Chavez Delemer had become attached to the union during his two years in Congress. The former mayor of suburban Oregon, who narrowly won a seat in 2022, would pass legislation known as the PRO Act that would make it easier to unionize and expand the workforce, a top legislative priority for the labor movement. He was one of only three House Republicans to co-sponsor. Protection of union members.
After Chavez Delemer’s nomination was announced, two senior Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Patty Murray of Washington, issued cautiously optimistic statements about her. , this is an unusual sentiment for Democrats to express about presidential candidate Trump. Additionally, Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, whose union remained neutral in the presidential race, defended Chavez Delemer’s nomination after speaking at last year’s Republican National Convention and repeatedly endorsing Democratic candidates. And it has given more progressive union leaders hope that President Trump, who received the largest share of votes from union households for a Republican in the past 40 years, may change the way the party treats the labor movement. are.
“This is a positive move for those of us who represent workers and want them to have a better life,” said Randy Wine, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a close ally of Democratic leaders. Garten told me. He pointed out that Chavez Delemer not only supported the PRO Act, but also rebelled against his party by voting against private school vouchers and cuts to public education funding.
Trump courted union members throughout the campaign, viewing them as an important part of his blue-collar base and helping him reverse states like Michigan and Pennsylvania won by Joe Biden in 2020. . In September, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance spoke to reporters. The decline in private sector union membership in recent decades has been a “tragedy”, he said. This statement is in stark contrast to legislation that Republicans have been advocating for years to make it harder to unionize, including: Vance’s hometown is Ohio. O’Brien and Congressional Republicans reportedly pressured Trump to select Chavez Delemer after the election. This decision may have been a reward for the Teamsters’ disdain for Kamala Harris.
But until Chávez Delemer was elected, Mr. Trump’s support for unions was little more than rhetorical rhetoric. He is surrounded by conservative billionaires and generally supports business interests, such as opposing minimum wage hikes, increased overtime pay and other policies supported by organized labor. With this track record in mind, Democrats added conditions to their support of Chavez Delemer. “If Chavez Delemer is committed to strengthening unions and advancing worker power as Secretary of Labor, she is a strong candidate for the job,” Warren said in a statement.
That remains a big “what if?” Trump transition spokeswoman Allie Berry told me that Chavez Delemer no longer supports the PRO Act. It’s a big change that will disappoint Democrats, but could help secure the Republican support needed to win approval. “President Trump and his Labor secretary nominee agree that the PRO Act is unworkable,” Billy said.
For the same reasons Democrats like Chavez Delemer, conservatives are concerned and are pushing her to abandon her pro-union positions before Republicans agree to vote for her. “This is someone who stands out like a sore thumb,” Grover Norquist, a conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform, told me about her nomination. Norquist said her support for the PRO Act reflects “very bad judgment.” The anti-union group National Labor Rights Committee wrote in a letter to Trump before announcing Chavez Delemer’s nomination that she “has no place” in the Trump administration. The Harris Department of Labor sold out completely to Big Labor from the start. ”
In the Senate, Chavez Delemer’s nomination has not progressed as quickly as other candidates nominated by Trump. The Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which oversees the Department of Labor, has not scheduled a confirmation hearing for her. (Republicans are prioritizing hearings for Mr. Trump’s national security nominee.) And although she has not met with the committee’s chairman, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, , he issued a noncommittal statement after announcing his nomination. “We need to understand more about her support for the Democratic bill in Congress that would disenfranchise Louisiana as a labor state, and whether that will be her position going forward,” Cassidy said. Posted to Paul. Mr. Chavez-Deremer, who also serves on the committee and is a leading sponsor of major anti-union legislation, has said little publicly about him and did not respond to requests for comment. The Chief Strategist responded to this post with the following: He urged Cassidy to stop. (Cassidy was similarly lukewarm about another nominee within the committee’s jurisdiction, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.)
Chavez Delemer added her name to the PRO Act just months before last year’s election. Norquist speculated that he did so to appease unions in the district in hopes of retaining his seat. If that was her strategy, it was a failure. Chavez Delemer lost to Democrat Janelle Bynum after running one of the most expensive campaigns in the country.
Other Republicans see Chavez Delemer’s pro-labor stance as sincere rather than strategic. Her former colleague, Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon, praised her nomination, saying that President Trump chose her to serve at the Labor Department not because of her close ties to labor unions, but because of her close ties to labor unions. He said it was thanks to “The fact that President-elect Trump has reached out to workers shows that he understands the need to build better relationships between workers and Republicans,” he said. told me. “And he saw in Lori exactly what he was trying to do.” Bentz said he would be surprised if Chavez-Delemer “regressed on most things.”
But Chavez Delemer is not the first Trump Cabinet nominee to repudiate past positions to win support from Republican skeptics in the Senate. Tulsi Gabbard, a candidate for director of national intelligence, has withdrawn her opposition to a key surveillance tool known as Section 702 of FISA, which was enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And President Kennedy is reportedly softening his longstanding vaccine attacks in a meeting with Republican senators.
If Chavez Delemer opposes the PRO Act, Democrats and unions will certainly be cold to her, but they won’t be shocked. Union leaders told me they had no illusions that the Republican Party would completely withdraw its hostility toward the labor movement, even if her nomination signaled a move in that direction. “We have seen Project 2025,” said Jodi Kalemin, AFL-CIO advocacy director. “The agenda is anti-worker to its core.”
It is unclear how much influence Chávez Delemer will have in a government dominated by business leaders. For example, the PRO Act is unlikely to pass in a Republican-controlled Congress even with a supportive Labor secretary, and Norquist said the We expect that strict controls will be put in place. Both.
For progressives, Chavez Delemer is clearly preferable to other names President Trump is reportedly considering for labor secretary. Most notable include the removal of fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder from the nomination in 2017 over ethics conflicts, revelations that the company hired undocumented immigrants as housekeepers, and reports of labor law violations at its restaurants. She is also considered more union-friendly than Trump’s first-term labor secretaries Alexander Acosta and Eugene Scalia.
Chavez Delemer may be the best candidate Democrats can get under the Trump administration. But labor leaders like Weingarten are wondering how her support for recent union-friendly legislation stands with an administration that empowers business leaders and billionaires in other key positions. They will be watching closely to see if they will cooperate with the project. Weingarten said labor is “a decisive part of whether or not the parties remain in the existing camps.” He said he would encourage Democratic senators to support Chavez Delemer if the candidate maintains a pro-union stance. But if she abandons them, Weingarten says, “then all bets are off.”
