The Senate confirmed Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be President Donald Trump’s labor secretary on Monday, with over a dozen Democrats backing the former House lawmaker.
The vote was 67 in favor of her nomination and 32 against.
The confirmation puts a centrist Republican with a pro-union record in charge of the Labor Department, responsible for enforcing workplace safety rules and minimum wage and overtime regulations.
Three Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, as well as Ted Budd of North Carolina — voted against Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination, while 18 Democrats voted in favor in a rare show of bipartisan support for one of Trump’s Cabinet nominees. In fact, her nomination was saved in committee thanks to support from liberal senators.
Chavez-DeRemer represented Oregon’s 5th District for one term before losing reelection last fall. She was among the chamber’s few union-friendly Republicans and even co-sponsored a Democratic bill aimed at rejuvenating the labor movement and making it easier for workers to organize.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters had pushed Chavez-DeRemer for the labor slot, with the union’s president, Sean O’Brien, recommending her to Trump. Chavez-DeRemer’s father had been a Teamster, and she cultivated support with Oregon unions in her run for the House.
O’Brien previously said Chavez-DeRemer “knows the importance of carrying a union card and what it means to grow up in a middle-class household.”
That kind of talk — especially when paired with Chavez-DeRemer’s House record — drew some suspicion from Republican senators. She was one of just three House Republicans in the last Congress to endorse the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a sweeping pro-union bill that would, among other measures, nullify state “right to work” laws.
Chavez-DeRemer ended up jettisoning her support for that provision during her confirmation hearing, which helped carry her with skeptical Republicans. But most GOP senators were reluctant to cross Trump on a nomination anyway.
Democrats who supported Chavez-DeRemer said they were comforted by her statements in support of workers. They also said she was the most bipartisan-minded individual Trump could have nominated to the post, compared to more conservative possible alternatives.
“These are hard times to be an executive, to run one of the executive agencies. But that said, [Chavez-DeRemer] can do a tremendous amount of good without pissing anybody off,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) told HuffPost.
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But other Democratic senators opposed Chavez-DeRemer in protest of the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal government agencies and mass firing of civil servants, including at key labor boards.
After Monday’s vote, Trump will have all his formal Cabinet confirmed a week before former President Joe Biden did in March 2021. Republicans pushed hard to approve all of Trump’s picks in record time, even controversial ones who faced allegations of sexual misconduct and drunkenness.