Elizabeth Warren Signals Possible Support For Trump Labor Nominee

A top Democrat and critic of Donald Trump says she might be willing to throw her support behind the president-elect’s choice for labor secretary, a sign of how one Trump nominee could scramble the usual political lines in the Senate confirmation process.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost it’s a “big deal” that Trump’s pick to lead the Labor Department, outgoing GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Oregon), endorsed the pro-union legislation known as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Only two other House Republicans signed on to the bill in this Congress.

Warren takes that as a hopeful sign for the nominee’s approach to workplace issues.

“If Chavez-DeRemer commits as labor secretary to strengthen labor unions and promote worker power, she’s a strong candidate for the job,” she said in a statement.

But Warren went on to say that the nomination — which could draw opposition from members of Trump’s own party — is an early test for both the incoming president and the Senate GOP.

“Will Trump stand strong with workers or bow down to his corporate donors and the Republican establishment’s opposition?” she said. “And if Republican Senators block Trump’s labor nominee for standing with unions, it will show that the party’s support for workers is all talk.”

A moderate one-term Republican who just lost her House reelection bid last month, Chavez-DeRemer is one of the outliers in Trump’s would-be Cabinet of loyalists, TV personalities and partisan bomb-throwers. She reportedly had the backing of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who cultivated a relationship with Trump during his latest White House run.

Her PRO Act support is probably the most unorthodox line on Chavez-DeRemer’s resume. A sweeping plan to overhaul the nation’s labor law, the legislation would make it easier to form unions and secure collective bargaining agreements, increase penalties for illegal union-busting by employers and roll back state “right-to-work” laws, among many other measures.

She also backed a bill to expand union rights to more public-sector workers — a proposal that had only seven other Republican backers in the House.

The Chavez-DeRemer nomination plays into the GOP’s attempted rebranding as a pro-labor party, but her support for union-friendly legislation might be too much for some Republican senators to swallow. The most high-profile faces of that image makeover — Vice President-elect Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio) and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) — were willing to walk a strike picket line but not co-sponsor the PRO Act, which has never passed the Senate.

“I have real questions about her vote for the PRO Act,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told HuffPost on Monday. “I don’t know her. I don’t believe we’ve ever met, but if she voted to repeal [state right-to-work laws], there’s some questions that need to be answered.”

Some anti-union groups that typically align with Republicans have denounced Chavez-DeRemer as a candidate for the labor role, with the National Right to Work Committee saying she should “have no place in the Trump administration.”

Republicans will hold a slim 53-47 majority in the incoming Senate. If they face enough pressure from business groups to oppose her nomination, there’s a scenario in which Democratic backing could put Chavez-DeRemer over the top for confirmation — if Trump sticks by her.

But having a union ally atop the Labor Department doesn’t necessarily mean the agency would pursue a pro-worker agenda. Labor secretaries can’t enact any major reforms without a green light from the White House. To truly mark a new direction for the GOP, Trump would have to break with all the anti-union and deregulatory workplace policies of his first term.

Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.