The Financial Services Institute is taking a “wait-and-see” approach to former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary.
At a press briefing held during FSI’s annual OneVoice Conference held in Dallas this year, CEO Dale Brown acknowledged that their knowledge and understanding of Chavez-DeRemer’s positions paled compared to their relationship with SEC Chair Nominee Paul Atkins.
“Frankly, we don’t know her extremely well yet,” Brown said.
Chavez-DeRemer may strike a contrast with the previous occupants of the Labor Department during Trump’s first term.
The former Oregon congresswoman is considered unconventionally pro-labor for a GOP politician, being one of the three Republicans to sponsor the Protecting The Right to Organize Act, proposed legislation that would amend a bevy of existing labor laws to strengthen workers’ protections. (In contrast, former Trump Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia spoke critically of aspects of the law during a 2021 Fox Business interview.)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) already pledged to oppose Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination because she supported the PRO Act and told NBC News he suspected that as many as 15 GOP senators could do the same. (Although he suspected she may win some Democratic votes.) The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has not yet scheduled a hearing for the potential Labor Secretary.
Brown stressed the FSI does not weigh in on nomination fights, saying there are “400 downsides and maybe half of an upside” to doing so, and feels like the advocacy group doesn’t know her views on worker classification or fiduciary issues. However, Brown acknowledged the FSI knew Atkins from his time as an SEC commissioner and during his career in the private sector.
“And so that leads us to have greater confidence and greater optimism that we’ll be able to be heard and have an opportunity to shape some outcomes under his chairmanship,” Brown said.
Brown and others at the FSI are anxious to better understand Trump’s Labor Department in its second term. The department is fighting two rules passed during the Biden administration in court.
The first is the independent contractor rule. Biden’s DOL released its final version of the rule last January. DOL officials argued that it would reduce employers’ misclassification of employees to prevent them from qualifying for federal labor protections and higher wages. However, in a court order opposing it, the FSI argued that the rule was “vague, amorphous and context-dependent.”
The FSI also opposed the Biden administration’s iteration of a fiduciary rule, with Brown saying during last year’s OneVoice conference that the firm was prepared to sue the DOL if it didn’t withdraw or “substantially” improve the rule (which was in its proposal stage at the time).
During this morning’s press briefing, FSI General Counsel David Bellaire said a decision in Texas District Court filed by the FSI and a number of other plaintiffs opposing the independent contractor rule could “come any day.” The Trump administration’s Justice Department has asked for a 60-day pause to “familiarize themselves with these issues and determine how they wish to proceed,” according to Bloomberg Law.
The cases seeking to strike down the fiduciary rule are also progressing after a Texas court temporarily halted the rule in July. The judge agreed with plaintiffs that the rule “suffers many of the same problems” as a version of the fiduciary rule finalized during the Obama administration. In September, the DOL announced it intended to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (the Fifth Circuit also struck down the Obama-era rule during Trump’s first term in 2018).
“So, we’re very pleased with the lower court’s decision, which issued the stay and the indication (is) that we are almost certainly going to win the underlying case,” Bellaire said.