WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has repeatedly challenged Senate Republicans with his Cabinet picks. But his nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer for labor secretary may be proving the hardest for many to accept.
Chavez-DeRemer, a former congresswoman from Oregon, hardly cuts the profile of a traditional Republican nominee. She is the daughter of a lifelong Teamsters member. She's a small business owner who served as the mayor of a fast-growing suburb in liberal Portland, Oregon. And in the House, she co-sponsored legislation championed by America’s labor unions.
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That background is why Trump, encouraged by some allies, nominated Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Labor Department. Her selection has scrambled the usual partisan divides, attracting some Democratic support even as her union-friendly stances generate concern and in some cases outright opposition from many Republicans.
But that shakeup is exactly the goal for Trump and allied Republicans, who aim to cast aside the party’s long-held antipathy toward unions and lure more voters away from the Democratic Party.
“The party has changed,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., a proponent of Trump’s Cabinet nominees who says he speaks with Chavez-DeRemer on a regular basis.
“If you look at the new coalition of supporters that President Trump brought to the party, labor being one of them ... Lori’s a perfect person to kind of fit that gap,” he said.
But that view is far from unanimous across the GOP, with some Senate Republicans outright opposed to her confirmation.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who sits on the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, criticized Chavez-DeRemer’s past support for the PRO Act, saying the law would overturn state laws that require an employee be able to refrain from joining a labor union.
Yet Paul said he believes Chavez-DeRemer will likely be confirmed on an unusually bipartisan basis.
“I think she’ll lose 15 Republicans and she’ll get 25 Democrats,” Paul told reporters. “But she’s very pro-labor. She might get all the Democrats, who knows.”
If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer will confront growing challenges in the workplace at a time of resurgent union organizing. The Labor Department’s reach is vast, covering investigations into labor practices, debates over in-office and remote work and concerns over automation as artificial intelligence products surge across the economy.
Chavez-DeRemer, like other Trump Cabinet nominees, has kept quiet ahead of her confirmation hearing, which is set for Wednesday. But in the past, she’s been blunt about her backing of organized labor. As a House member, she often welcomed union members into her office for meetings, and she touted her support from her district’s union chapters on the campaign trail.
“In my district, unions aren't the enemy of small businesses, they're a partner. Small businesses benefit from the presence of unions. As a small business owner, I know this better than most,” Chavez-DeRemer said in a 2024 reelection ad.
When she sat on the House subcommittee that oversees labor issues, Chavez-DeRemer was often absent from hearings that her Republican colleagues held to lambast unions.
“When I was asked to be on that committee, I let them know ahead of time that I would be somewhat challenging maybe some of the views and they are OK with that,” Chavez-DeRemer said during a 2023 interview with the union-run Northwest Labor Press.
Union leaders took notice.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest labor unions in the country, is supporting Chavez-DeRemer and said she hopes Trump “gives her the power that President Roosevelt gave Francis Perkins,” the trailblazing labor secretary who oversaw the New Deal.
“You already see the anti-labor people in the Republican Party trying to mount a case against her,” Weingarten said. “I thought it was important for those of us who believe in labor rights and worker empowerment to stand up and say that that this was unconventional and a positive appointment.”
Chavez-Demer’s nomination also has the support of Sean O'Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He made waves ahead of last year’s election by speaking at the Republican convention before the Teamsters declined to endorse Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris for president.
O'Brien approached Mullin after the election and floated Chavez-DeRemer's name, arguing she could be an olive branch to organized labor, Mullin recalled. They then went together and pitched Trump on the idea.
The team-up would have been unimaginable in 2023, when O’Brien lambasted Mullin as a “greedy CEO who pretends like he’s self-made” at a hearing that nearly devolved into a fistfight. But in the interceding years, they’d developed a friendship over sports, fitness and the politics of work.
“We’re a bit of an odd couple, I guess,” Mullin said.
Trump's outreach to voters from once heavily unionized communities has been a driving force behind the new union-friendly approach. Others in the party have been working toward the same goal. Conservative academics and policy aides have been organizing behind the scenes for years as part of an effort to shift the GOP's thinking on economics.
“At a high level, the change has been a shift from defaulting to a pro-business perspective,” said Abigail Ball, the executive director at American Compass, a conservative think tank. Ball said the “failure of globalization” has pushed many conservatives toward a new approach.
“I think the American people very much realized that trade and the cheap TV was not worth the loss of strong communities and the ability for a guy who did not go to college to support his family on one income,” Ball said.
Republican senators are broadly receptive to Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination. But several have noted how unconventional the pick is for a Republican president.
“She voted for the PRO Act. I don’t like that. But I like her. I think she’ll be good,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.
“My attitude is the president won the election, and he’s entitled to his team absent extraordinary circumstances,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “She’s maybe not somebody I would have chosen, but that’s not the question as far as I’m concerned.”
Some Republican senators with a more populist bent hope Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination serves as a nod to the party’s changing base, which has come to include more working-class voters in traditionally unionized service and manufacturing jobs.
“I think she understands the need to have strong unions, to have a strong labor voice and protect labor,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who sits on the Senate committee overseeing labor issues.
“We need more American jobs at better wages. We need more good union jobs,” Hawley said. “I think she understands that.”
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