The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Spending wars heat up with Trump pick of Vought

Trump’s Labor pick sparks rare GOP backlash

Labor Dems seek new party message after election

The Congressional Black Caucus PAC’s view on 2024

THE TOP

Spending wars heat up with Trump pick of Vought

Happy Monday morning. A programming note: We’re only publishing AM editions this week. We have no editions on Thursday and Friday. We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week.

The House and Senate are out of session.

Let’s talk about the FY2025 spending fight and what it means for President-elect Donald Trump and Congress.

Trump has announced Russell Vought as his pick for OMB director, which would be a return to this powerful post for Vought if he’s confirmed. The 48-year-old Vought — who played a supporting role in the events that led to Trump’s 2020 impeachment — could end up having as big an impact early on as any of the president-elect’s picks.

Vought — who spent a dozen years on Capitol Hill as a House and Senate budget staffer — strongly opposed the 2023 spending deal between President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Vought worked with hardline conservatives to try to undermine the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Hill Democrats now are seeking an FY2025 spending deal based on the FRA, basically an extension of what happened earlier this year under Speaker Mike Johnson. Vought didn’t like that deal either.

Johnson wants to pass a short-term continuing resolution into next year, which would give Trump and Vought — a key Project 2025 author — a chance to shape any eventual spending deal. It also eases the pressure on Johnson heading into a Jan. 3 floor vote for speaker as conservatives back this approach. The CR may include disaster relief funding, although that package isn’t likely to be anywhere as big as the nearly $99 billion that Biden is seeking.

Depending on how long the CR extends funding, Trump thus could begin his second term with a huge budget fight led by someone who Democrats, uhh, dislike intensely.

For Trump, this is shaping up to be a repeat of 2017, when the appropriations battle dragged into May. It will impact Trump’s “100 Days” agenda, at least as far as Congress is concerned. There are other challenges on that front, however.

Also lurking out there is a debt-limit hike, which is worth paying attention to soon. Under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the debt limit was suspended until Jan. 1. The Treasury Department can extend this deadline for an undetermined period — usually several months — using “extraordinary measures.”

Vought is among those in the past who have advocated using the debt-limit vote and threat of a default to extract huge spending cuts. We’ll see how Trump handles this issue soon after he returns to the Oval Office.

Vought, who has proposed huge cuts to discretionary funding and Medicaid, is among those Trump allies looking to challenge Congress’ authority over spending via impoundment. The longstanding view is that the president must spend money appropriated by Congress. Vought has made clear that he sees appropriations as a “ceiling not a floor,” which translates into the belief that the president can refuse to spend funds approved by Congress.

Democrats vehemently reject the impoundment argument, believing it violates the Constitution, so we may see legal challenges if the Trump administration tries this in a large-scale way.

“The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and nowhere does it give the White House any unilateral power to impound funds appropriated by Congress,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriation Committee.

Like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — who will head up the “Department of Government Efficiency” for Trump, an advisory panel — Vought has said funding for any department or agency that’s not reauthorized is ripe for cutting. Trump, with Vought’s help, also redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The Supreme Court later upheld this move.

All of this is a huge challenge for Congress on the spending front. Now pair it with Trump’s comments on recess appointments, his vow to use executive authority to revise the status of tens of thousands of federal employees to make them easier to fire, the Musk-Ramaswamy effort, and the flurry of other “Dictator for a Day” moves that Trump has telegraphed. Big changes are coming to Washington.

Latest on Raskin: We scooped on Friday that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is being urged by many of his colleagues to make a play for the ranking member post at the House Judiciary Committee by challenging Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).

There’s been a lot of buzz among House Democrats about this over the weekend — to say the least. The latest read is that Raskin may not make the move. Raskin didn’t respond to requests for comment, so it’s still unclear what the Maryland Democrat will do. We’ll stay on top of this for you.

— John Bresnahan

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THE TRANSITION

Trump’s Labor pick sparks rare GOP backlash

President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks have largely enjoyed public deference from Senate Republicans and from conservatives generally. Not Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.).

Trump picked the Oregon Republican, who lost her reelection bid on Nov. 5, to be his Labor secretary. It immediately prompted criticism from conservatives who see Chavez-DeRemer as too close to labor unions.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who’s set to chair the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the next Congress, had this to say about Chavez-DeRemer, citing her support for the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act:

It’s a rare case of Senate Republicans — and conservatives more broadly — openly questioning a Trump Cabinet pick. And not because of poor qualifications or alleged personal indiscretions, a la former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

Instead, Chavez-DeRemer is coming under scrutiny because of her support for a key Democratic agenda item and concerns that she’d undermine GOP efforts to undo the Biden administration’s labor regulations.

Republicans aghast: Chavez-DeRemer was one of just three GOP co-sponsors of the PRO Act, a bill to expand collective bargaining rights and strengthen the influence of labor unions.

Charlyce Bozzello of the Center for Union Facts, which is critical of labor unions, said Chavez-DeRemer’s support for the bill “shows a blatant disregard for the needs of American workers and job creators.” National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix said Chavez-DeRemer “should have no place in the Trump administration.”

GOP lawmakers in both chambers have railed against the PRO Act, saying it would upend states’ right-to-work laws. Republicans on the HELP Committee — which will process Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination — have voted against it. The bill was the subject of a rowdy hearing a year ago which saw a GOP senator challenge Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a fight.

O’Brien praised the selection of Chavez-DeRemer, saying it showed Trump was “putting American workers first.” The AFL-CIO noted Chavez-DeRemer’s PRO Act support but called Trump’s agenda “anti-worker.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Chavez-DeRemer’s record “suggests real support of workers and their right to unionize.”

Will it matter? Chavez-DeRemer represents a purple district, so the one-term lawmaker could quite easily explain her support for the PRO Act by arguing she was representing the views of her constituents. But in order to win Senate confirmation, Chavez-DeRemer will need to reassure Republicans that she’s committed to their agenda when it comes to labor regulations.

Republicans have sought to use the Congressional Review Act to invalidate the Biden administration’s rulemaking on labor issues, including the joint employer and independent contractor rules. The expectation has been that the incoming administration would reverse both.

Chavez-DeRemer voted with her party to block the joint employer rule earlier this year. She wasn’t present for a committee vote on the independent contractor rule. Both issues will come up during her confirmation hearing.

But Cassidy’s statement was notable in that it signaled a level of concern about the nominee even before the vetting process had begun. GOP leaders have long been concerned about a growing pro-union sentiment in the party — often advanced by Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), for example.

Hawley, who has broken from his party on a handful of labor-related votes, said Chavez-DeRemer is a “great pick.”

“Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the election because he had the backing of working people. Now his mandate is to pass an agenda that delivers for them,” Hawley told us. “Congressional Republicans need to get over their love affair with corporate America and wake up to who their voters are.”

— Andrew Desiderio

BACK TO THE BASICS

Labor Dems seek new party message after election

Blue-collar Democrats are sounding the alarm about their party’s slipping appeal with working-class voters, and some lawmakers want to change how the party speaks to vast swaths of the country.

“The idea that Democrats lost working families to the billionaire Republicans is stunning. That’s the only word I can use to describe it,” Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) told us. “We have a long way to go to accept the fact there’s a problem here. I’m not sure the majority of our members are willing to accept that.”

A number of Hill Democrats argue the party must return to its focus on traditional issues such as unflinching support of unions. Despite Democrats historically being the political home of most of the nation’s leading labor unions, they’re losing steam with rank-and-file union members.

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who often bucks his party, coined himself recently as a “Labor Democrat” when speaking to constituents in his pro-Trump district. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition with Golden, has called for her party to invite more people with working-class backgrounds to run for office.

Rep. Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), a third-generation union member who represents a largely rural district, said President-elect Donald Trump has been successful in tapping into the anger felt by Americans who feel left behind — even as Democratic lawmakers trumpet the country’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Hoyle argues Democrats have catered too much to college-educated voters over trade workers.

“I do see some of my colleagues talking down to people who go into the trades, acting as if we have a noble obligation to lift people up,” Hoyle said in an interview. “Really what people want is an opportunity to succeed and have a path to economic prosperity.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has pushed back on those blaming progressive policies for Democrats’ losses. But the New York Democrat said she was unsurprised by the concept of AOC-Trump voters in her district because of the way the party has failed to talk to working-class communities.

“I came here as a waitress and people treated me as unintelligent because of the way that I talked,” Ocasio-Cortez told us. “I spoke directly and frankly and I don’t have an Ivy League degree. The same things that were a detriment to me when I first got here were an asset when I’m back in my community.”

Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), who represents a blue-collar district that includes Pittsburgh, said his party should listen to members on the ground about how to speak to voters regionally. He particularly touched on the need to talk about the country more positively.

“Democrats would be wise to look to candidates who did well and can speak to their region’s values,” Deluzio told us. “In almost every part of this country, patriotism is a very strong value and we should make sure we’re owning love of country and grounding it in our political values.”

— Mica Soellner

2024

The Congressional Black Caucus PAC’s view on 2024

News: The Congressional Black Caucus PAC is circulating a memo touting its November success, arguing the group’s endorsed members “withstood a rightward shift in the electorate.”

The CBC will have 62 members in the 119th Congress, the largest in the caucus’ history. And despite Republicans controlling the House and Senate, the CBC sees glimmers of positivity.

All four CBC vulnerable House Frontliners — Reps. Don Davis (N.C.), Jahana Hayes (Conn.), Emilia Sykes (Ohio) and Steven Horsford (Nev.) — won reelection. In the Senate, Sens.-elect Angela Alsobrooks (Md.) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.) won historic elections.

Per the memo, the CBC PAC invested early in Black voter engagement in House battlegrounds in spring 2023. Plus, the group launched a micro-influencer program to combat misinformation and spent nearly $1 million on issue ads.

The CBC PAC memo also hails the CBC members in leadership, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Assistant Leader Joe Neguse. Interestingly, the memo also shouts the CBC members who are the top Democrats on House committees: Reps. Bobby Scott (Va.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Gregory Meeks (N.Y.) and David Scott (Ga.). Scott, of course, is facing a strong challenge to his ranking member status on the House Agriculture Committee.

— Max Cohen

… AND THERE’S MORE

A sign of the times. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who is running for governor of the Garden State, is now the co-chair of the Law Enforcement Caucus. It wasn’t long ago that some Democratic candidates were calling to defund the police. Here’s the release.

Downtown Download. H.F. Vickers, an Arizona-based venture capital firm, has hired Collective Strategies and Communications to lobby on “rebuilding naval architecture.”

LG, the South Korean-based electronics giant, has hired Public Strategies Washington to “advocate for policy and regulatory issues regarding business of registrant and its affiliated organizations in the United States, including issues related to battery manufacturing, supply chains, energy, trade, and tax.”

— Jake Sherman

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