Then-U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, listens to Portland business owner Ann Naughton while Portland Police Sgt. Aaron Schmautz looks on during a discussion in Oregon City in October 2024. Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed Monday as the next federal labor secretary. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
One-term Oregon congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer successfully turned her election loss and closer-than-typical relationship with some unions into a post in President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
The U.S. Senate voted 67-32 on Monday to confirm Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, with 17 Democrats supporting her and three Republicans rejecting her nomination. It’s a huge step up for Chavez-DeRemer, whose only political experience before her single term in Congress was losing two state House races and serving as mayor of the small Portland suburb of Happy Valley.
Chavez-DeRemer tweeted that she was honored to be confirmed.
“As promised, I’ll work tirelessly to put American Workers First by fighting for good-paying jobs, safe working conditions, and secure retirement benefits,” she wrote. “Let’s get to work.”
Chavez-DeRemer, the daughter of a Teamster, actively courted support from unions during her unsuccessful reelection bid. More than 20 unions, most of them small local organizations, ultimately endorsed her, while Oregon’s largest private sector union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, supported both her and her election opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum.
“She’s got more labor union endorsements than any Republican I’ve ever seen in my life,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said at an October campaign rally with Chavez-DeRemer.
That wasn’t enough for her to beat Bynum in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, which stretches from Bend to Portland and voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the two most recent presidential elections. But Chavez-DeRemer’s labor ties — and her politically risky decision to endorse Trump after his last serious opponent dropped out and ahead of Oregon’s May primary — paid off with a Cabinet promotion.
Another late endorsement, her July 2024 decision to cosponsor the union-backed Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, led to scrutiny from Republican senators. Chavez-DeRemer signed onto the bill, which would have weakened state “right-to-work” laws and allowed unions to collect money from all employees, after it was clear it wouldn’t receive a hearing or vote. She disavowed it during a confirmation hearing last month, assuring Republicans that she supported the bill only because she was representing Oregon and that she supported their states’ laws banning mandatory union membership.
“I signed on to the PRO Act because I was representing Oregon’s 5th District, but I also signed on to the PRO Act because I wanted to be at that table and have those conversations,” Chavez-DeRemer said during the hearing. “But I fully support states that want to protect their right to work.”
Three Republicans — former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, both of Kentucky, and Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina — voted against Chavez-DeRemer. McConnell said in a statement that Chavez-DeRemer had a record of pushing policies that force Americans into union membership and could continue Biden-era policies.
“Secretary Chavez-DeRemer will have a critical opportunity to put the interests of working families ahead of Big Labor bosses by empowering every American worker to join a union on their terms. I hope she takes it,” McConnell said.
Oregon’s two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, voted against Chavez-DeRemer, but several other Democrats supported her nomination in both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and on the floor.
Both Democratic senators from Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia voted for her, as did Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, Adam Schiff, D-California and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island.
Chavez-DeRemer will be the first Oregonian to serve in a presidential cabinet since Bonneville Power Administrator Don Hodel, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of energy and secretary of interior. Before Chavez-DeRemer, the most recent Oregon elected official to hold a cabinet post was former Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, who served as President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of transportation before becoming Oregon’s governor.
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