President Trump's Cabinet is nearly complete after the Senate confirmed his Labor Department nominee in a bipartisan vote.
Republicans looked past concerns about Lori Chavez-DeRemer's union backing, with nearly all Republicans voting for her in the latest sign of Trump's transformation of the party. The final vote was 67-32, with 17 Democrats crossing the aisle. Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa) did not vote.
Chavez-DeRemer lost re-election in the fall after serving one term in the House. Her nomination faced uncertainty at first, given her past support of a controversial pro-union bill, the PRO Act.
Despite some Republican skepticism over her backing of that legislation, which would overturn state right-to-work laws, only a handful of GOP members voted against her on Monday: Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Ted Budd (R-Nc.).
Paul voted against advancing her nomination past the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee last month, but she made it through 14-9, with three Democrats on the committee supporting her.
Senator Paul had made his opposition to the nominee clear, citing her past support of the PRO Act. McConnell voiced similar concerns about her politics, although it's not the first time McConnell, one of Trump's biggest Republican critics, has opposed the president's Cabinet picks.
“Most Americans believe joining a union should be a personal choice – not a mandate – which is why more than half the states, including Kentucky, have adopted right-to-work laws," McConnell said.
The criticism from McConnell, however, has been overshadowed by the show of support from Senate Republicans like Majority Leader John Thune, who succeeded McConnell as the top Senate Republican.
"We need the Labor Department to do better than what we saw from the Biden administration,” Thune (R-Sd.) said last week. “Over the last four years, the Labor Department pushed out many mandates that were the very opposite of pro-worker.”
Trump's nomination of Chavez-DeRemer was seen as an effort to expand the GOP's coalition after traditionally Democratic union voters embraced Trump in the presidential election. The daughter of a Teamsters boss, Chavez-DeRemer was endorsed by the union and its president, Sean O'Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention last year.
With Chavez-DeRemer confirmed, Trump's only remaining Cabinet nominee is Elise Stefanik, his choice for U.N. ambassador. Despite some initial drama, Trump has assembled his Cabinet with only occasional hiccups, with a handful of GOP senators, especially McConnell, breaking with the president on key votes.
