A new date for the Lori Chavez-DeRemer confirmation hearing has been added to this story. Instead of February 12, that will now take place on February 19.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican from the Happy Valley, is interviewing for a promotion months after losing her seat representing Oregon in Congress.
Before senators vote on whether to confirm her position as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary, she will be questioned by the Senate’s Health, Education, and Labor Committee on Wednesday, February 19.
Chavez-DeRemer would be just the sixth Oregonian to hold a cabinet position in the White House if confirmed.
Although her union-friendly positions cause congressional Republicans to express alarm and in some cases outright oppose her, Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination has blurred traditional partisan lines and garnered some Democratic support.
That upheaval, however, is precisely what Trump and his Republican allies want in order to overcome the party’s long-standing hostility toward unions and win over more votes away from the Democratic Party.According to public opinion surveys, Americans now value labor unions more than they have in almost 60 years.
The GOP has evolved, according to Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. He claims to have daily conversations with Chavez-DeRemer.
Labor is one of the new coalition of supporters that President Trump recruited to the party. He claimed that Lori was the ideal candidate to fill that void.
After turning the newly reconfigured 5th Congressional District from Democratic to Republican control in 2022, Chavez-DeRemer served as the representative for two years in Oregon’s politically diverse 5th Congressional District. In November, she lost by a slim margin to Democratic state representative Janelle Bynum in one of the most costly and widely followed U.S. House contests nationwide.
Throughout the campaign, Bynum and Chavez-DeRemer divided union support. The AFL-CIO, SEIU, and other sizable public sector unions that represent Oregon nurses supported Bynum. Trade and public safety unions that represented everyone from firefighters to ironworkers endorsed Chavez-DeRemer. Although it supported Democrats in Oregon’s other contested state and congressional races, the local Teamsters Joint Council 37 also supported Chavez-DeRemer in her reelection campaign.
At a Chavez-DeRemer campaign rally in Oregon City in October, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, stated, “She has more labor union endorsements than any Republican I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The father of Chavez-DeRemer belonged to the Teamsters Union. She has bragged about her support for apprenticeship programs and unions during contract talks. According to the Oregon Capital Chronicle, she was the only Republican to vote against a Republican measure that limited which labor disputes are heard by the National Labor Relations Board and one of only three Republicans to co-sponsor the PRO Act, a U.S. House Democrats initiative to increase employee rights to bargain and organize.
Trump would be insane not to hire her if he truly wants to support labor and care for working people. Last year, Jimbo Anderson, the operating engineers union’s business manager and financial secretary for Local 701, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
In southwestern Washington and Oregon, the organization represents around 4,000 engineers and heavy equipment operators. During a 10-week strike against Valley Landfills last year, Anderson recalled, Chavez-DeRemer personally stood by members, writing a letter in support of workers and attempting to arbitrate negotiations.
During the 2024 campaign, however, some Democrats and union officials accused Chavez-DeRemer of having superficial labor backing and criticized her for skipping anti-union events where she could have defended unions from Republican attacks.
At a rally in Bynum in October, Melissa Unger, executive director of SEIU 503, stated, “When it comes down to it, she has not shown up for us when we needed her in Congress.” She doesn’t advocate for workers’ rights within her party.
It is evident that Chavez-DeRemer has developed a rapport with certain unions, Unger stated on Tuesday. If Chavez-DeRemer wins the labor nomination, she intends to advance the PRO Act’s tenets, such as ensuring that employees can organize without fear.
She made numerous pro-labor statements. Is she going to stick to that? That is the key question. And in a Trump administration, can she stick to that? “Unger said.”
The nomination of Chavez-DeRemer has received widespread support from Republican senators, despite some pointing out how unusual the choice is for a Republican president. Some people are still adamantly against her confirmation.
The PRO Act would invalidate state laws requiring employees to be given the option to choose not to join a labor union, according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is on the Senate committee that deals with labor problems.
Paul, however, stated that he thinks Chavez-DeRemer will probably be confirmed in a way that is exceptionally nonpartisan.
Paul told reporters, “I think she’ll get 25 Democrats and lose 15 Republicans.” She’s really pro-labor, though. Who knows, she might win all the Democrats.
Adam Shah, director of National Policy at Jobs with Justice, a nonprofit organization that supports workers’ rights, stated that since the inauguration, his expectations for tomorrow’s hearing have significantly changed.
At first, he thought the hearing would be a tug-of-war over unions.
However, Shah anticipates that Democrats would raise concerns about what Chavez-DeRemer will do in response to the Trump administration’s efforts to cut the federal workforce, deport employees, and fire employees that stalled the National Labor Relations Board at tomorrow’s session.
According to Shah, there is a genuine chance that former Representative Chavez-DeRemer will only serve as the leader of an organization that is genuinely hostile to workers. Both Elon Musk, the shadow president, and Donald Trump, the president, have displayed unprecedented animosity toward workers, and officials who have attempted to oppose them have been dismissed.
If verified, Chavez-DeRemer will face increasing working difficulties during a period of renewed union organizing. The scope of the Labor Department is extensive, encompassing labor practice investigations, discussions about remote and in-office work, and worries about automation as artificial intelligence products proliferate throughout the economy.
Leaders of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the American Federation of Teachers are endorsing Chavez-DeRemer’s confirmation. Before the two collaborated to present the notion to Trump, Teamsters President Sean O. Brien suggested Chavez-DeRemer as a labor secretary candidate to Mullin, the senator from Oklahoma.
The new union-friendly stance has been fueled by Trump’s outreach to supporters in once highly unionized communities. The same objective has been pursued by other party members. For years, conservative scholars and policy advisors have been working behind the scenes to change the GOP’s perspective.
Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination is seen by some more populist Republican senators as a response to the party’s shifting support base, which now includes more working-class voters in traditionally unionized industrial and service positions.
We need more well-paying employment in America. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is a member of the Senate committee that deals with labor matters, stated that we need more decent union jobs. I believe she is aware of that.
Since the middle of the 19th century, five other Oregonians have been appointed to the Cabinet, according to Kerry Tymchuk, director of the Oregon Historical Society:
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Former U.S. Senator George Williams was U.S. attorney general under President Ulysses Grant in 1871.
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Former Oregon Gov. Douglas McKay served as President Dwight Eisenhower s secretary of the interior in the 1950s, a controversial term during which McKay oversaw the termination of several Oregon tribes and their lands, Tymchuck wrote.
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Oregon-born Cecil Andrus served as Idaho governor before joining President Jimmy Carter s cabinet as secretary of the interior in 1977.
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Carter chose former Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt as his secretary of transportation.
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Don Hodel, a former Bonneville Power Administrator, served in President Ronald Reagan s cabinet for two terms, first as secretary of energy, then secretary of the interior.
Sami Edge writes for The Oregonian on politics and higher education. She may be contacted at (503) 260-3430 or [email protected].
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