Lori Chavez-DeRemer Wants to Ban the Red-State Model

National Review Online

Tuesday, December 03, 2024

 

Donald Trump swept the battleground states in 2024, which won him the Electoral College and the presidency. But he won the national popular vote in large part because he reduced Democrats’ margins in blue states. Compared to Joe Biden’s 2020 vote share, Kamala Harris did five points worse in New Jersey and Massachusetts, four points worse in New York and California, and three points worse in Illinois and Connecticut, netting Trump millions of votes.

 

Blue states have been losing residents — and House seats and presidential electors. Two of the top beneficiaries have been Florida and Texas, which each gained House seats after the 2020 Census and are projected to gain seven total House seats after the 2030 Census. Despite the influx in population, Texas remains safely red, and Florida went from a swing state to a red state.

 

Voters are fleeing and rejecting the big-spending, high-tax, anti-worker agendas of blue states, much to Republicans’ political benefit. That’s why Trump’s intent to nominate Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R., Ore.) as secretary of labor makes no sense. She has supported legislation that would make the red-state model of governance nearly impossible and empower the same unions that contribute to blue states’ woes.

 

Blue states with strong government unions have a taxpayer-funded interest group entrenched in the government itself that will always demand more spending, which inevitably means more taxes. Absurd disparities between states — such as how New York’s government spends roughly twice as much per person as Florida’s — result from such constant union pressure. These unions also oppose Republican policy goals such as school choice and civil-service reform and support Republican bogeymen such as DEI, ESG, and abortion.

 

States need to be free to restrict the power of these unions, which even many supporters of the New Deal labor laws that still govern unions today, including President Franklin Roosevelt, believed should not exist. But Chavez-DeRemer co-sponsored the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would force the blue-state model of government unions onto red states.

 

That bill would force all states to engage in collective bargaining with all public employees, effectively overturning most red states’ laws limiting the practice. It would nationalize all public-sector bargaining rules by giving the Federal Labor Relations Authority power to overrule state officials if rules don’t meet arbitrarily defined “minimum standards.” It would prohibit past Republican reforms championed by Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis, such as mandatory union recertification elections, and reinstate automatic dues deduction from public employees, which Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee have ended just in the past two years.

 

Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, most Democrats in Congress, the teachers’ unions, AFSCME, the Teamsters, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer support the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. Not one Republican senator does.

 

Chavez-DeRemer also supports the PRO Act, which would invalidate right-to-work laws in all 27 states that currently have them. Republican governors know how valuable right-to-work laws are for luring businesses fleeing blue states. Overwhelming majorities of Americans, including union members, support the commonsense idea that union membership should always be voluntary, but union bosses would prefer government compel their dues.

 

The PRO Act would restrict independent contracting along similar lines as California’s A.B. 5, one of those blue-state policies voters resent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 12 million Americans use independent contracting as their primary source of income, and 80 percent of them prefer independent contracting over traditional employment. Workers today want flexibility and self-control, not rigidity and union control.

 

Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, most Democrats in Congress, the teachers’ unions, the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer support the PRO Act. Not one Republican senator does.

 

It would be one thing if these anti-conservative policy stances were necessary concessions Chavez-DeRemer had to make to win in her Oregon swing district. But she lost after only one term in the House.

 

It’s not as though Republican senators don’t have ideas on labor policy. Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) has introduced the National Right-to-Work Act, which would simply strike some words from federal labor law to guarantee that union membership is voluntary for all workers nationwide. That bill has 31 Republican co-sponsors. Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.) has introduced the Employee Rights Act, which would protect workers from union intimidation, guarantee secret-ballot elections for unionization, and ensure the continuation of the independent-contracting jobs that so many workers like. That bill has 27 Republican co-sponsors.

 

It’s not a coincidence that the chamber of Congress designed to protect states’ interests has a majority of Republican senators lined up against the pro-union ideas Chavez-DeRemer supports. Red-state senators know why red states are succeeding, and it’s not because their governments are cozy with Big Labor.

 

One argument for the Chavez-DeRemer pick is that it’s a necessary token for the labor unions which at least refrained from endorsing Harris. But the cabinet position is a much bigger prize than warranted for neutrality, especially given that plenty of right-to-work conservatives went all in for Trump.

 

Over 95 percent of private-sector unionized workers today never voted for their union to represent them. When given the freedom to choose through right-to-work laws or Supreme Court decisions, union membership rates inevitably decline. Half of U.S. union members today work for government, and government unions stand in the way of Trump’s policy agenda. A Republican administration needs a secretary of labor who will stand for workers, not organized labor. The future of red states’ success depends on it.