President Trump's historic winning coalition of blue-collar voters throughout America's heartland delivered a Republican trifecta in the White House, Senate, and House. Unfortunately, placing a former Planned Parenthood employee and pro-union Lori Chavez-DeRemer atop the Department of Labor flies in the face of the reason why working-class Americans supported President Trump in the first place.
A month before the 2024 election, pollsters asked likely voters what the most important issues facing the country were. Nearly half of them answered jobs, inflation, and the economy—more than twice as much as any other issue, including hot-button topics like abortion, and climate policy. In other words, polls found what James Carville observed more than thirty years ago: “it’s the economy, stupid.”
Blue-collar workers went red this November because they felt the impact of Bidenomics – specifically out of control inflation that made the cost of living unbearable. Polling showed that the vast majority of Americans want lower taxes, because it leads to a stronger economy, more jobs, higher wages, and economic stability. Nearly four out of five Americans agreed that exorbitant federal spending leads to inflation and higher costs for everyday goods. In other words, blue-collar workers voted for the Republican candidate because they wanted Republican policies, not four more years of Bidenomics.
Unfortunately, the nominee for Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, does not share those same values that ushered Trump into a second term. First, Chavez-DeRemer advanced a culture of death in her work at Planned Parenthood. During her congressional runs, Chavez-DeRemer was not forthcoming with this information. It only became public when she was required to disclose it in her questionnaire to the Senate. Further, as a member of Congress, Chavez-DeRemer supported legislation that would impede President Trump’s agenda including the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act.
The PRO Act would take the progressive policies of Gavin Newsom’s California and implement them on a national scale, overturning right-to-work laws in 27 mostly Republican-run states and hurting independent contractors. Meanwhile, the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act would force every single state to recognize public-sector unions, effectively turning federalism on its head and overruling the democratic process while solely empowering government union bosses.
As Labor Secretary, Chavez-DeRemer could enact portions of these radical bills through regulations and guidance, effectively side-stepping Congress.
Secretary of Labor is hardly a backwater position that could be safely handed over to union leadership. Under the Biden Administration, progressives pushed Americans’ private savings accounts into the service of their radical climate agenda. They eroded worker’s rights, taking steps to put an end to independent contracting. And, most egregiously, they implemented the vaccine mandate through the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, forcing businesses to fire their unvaccinated employees.
Whoever is the next Labor Secretary will be tasked with rolling back the Biden Administration’s weaponization of labor regulations and ensuring the department once again fosters job-creation and growth. Outgoing Democrat Senators Sinema and Manchin were so outraged by the Biden labor agenda, they sunk President Biden’s pick to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, handing President Trump the opportunity to ensure a conservative majority on the board for the entirety of his term. If former Senators Sinema and Manchin can reject the Biden-labor union marriage, Senate Republicans should too.
Early signals have not been reassuring on this point. Chavez-DeRemer has earned praise from union bosses like the AFL-CIO President as well as the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, the woman singlehandedly responsible for hurting more American children than any other person in American history by keeping schools shuttered during COVID-19. Letting union bosses like Weingarten pick the Labor Secretary is as bad of an idea as letting President Trump’s oft-mentioned Hannibal Lecter decide what’s for dinner. Just because The Silence of the Lambs swept the Academy Awards doesn’t make it a winning playbook for conservative labor policy.
Here’s the truth: blue collar Americans don’t want labor policies that kill jobs. They want economic prosperity so that they can put gas in their car and food on their tables.
Ultimately, Chavez DeRemer is the wrong choice to lead the Labor Department and will eat up valuable Senate time that could be better used extending the Trump-Pence Tax Cuts, passing a reconciliation bill to advance the President’s ambitious agenda, or confirming a Labor Secretary who will spur rather than handcuff economic growth.
President Trump and the American People would be much better served by a Labor Secretary in line with the first Administration’s Eugene Scalia, rather than empowering unions to take job creators hostage.
Marc Short is the Chairman of Advancing American Freedom, former Chief of Staff to Mike Pence and White House Director of Legislative Affairs.
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