The Senate voted to confirm Keith Sonderling as labor secretary Wednesday night, elevating President Donald Trump’s latest replacement in his Cabinet after several high-profile firings and resignations this year.
The 47-41 vote came as senators prepared to recess to campaign ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Sonderling, a longtime ally of the business community, has been serving as acting labor secretary since Trump’s previous secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned in April after facing an onslaught of professional misconduct allegations, including personal travel during taxpayer-funded trips.
As Sonderling officially takes over at the agency, labor and business groups expect its focus on Trump’s priorities to continue, including deregulation, expanding apprenticeships, reshoring manufacturing jobs and readying the workforce for the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence.
Sonderling, who is popular in Republican policy circles in Washington, previously served as a top Labor official during Trump’s first term before an appointment to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Business lobbyists and agency staffers told The Washington Post that Sonderling, who served as deputy labor secretary under Chavez-DeRemer, had been the de facto decision-maker at the department since Trump took office while Chavez-DeRemer officially led the agency.
An investigation by the agency’s Office of Inspector General released early this month found that Chavez-DeRemer maintained an “inappropriately close and unprofessional relationship” with a bodyguard on her security detail, used government funds for personal travel and regularly drank on the job. The report detailed numerous occasions when Chavez-DeRemer failed to adhere to agency standards, including harassment policies. She disputed the allegations, and a lawyer for Chavez-DeRemer argued after the release of the report that she had not violated any laws.
The initial complaint filed with the Labor Department’s inspector general, Anthony D’Esposito, also led to the firings of several top Labor Department staffers and surfaced sexual misconduct allegations against Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Shawn DeRemer.
After Chavez-DeRemer’s resignation, industry groups lobbied the White House to officially nominate Sonderling for the role. Some supporters worried that the president would pass him over due to his lack of name recognition compared with Trump’s other high-profile Cabinet members. They celebrated when Trump formally nominated him this summer, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called him “eminently qualified” in a letter sent to senators this week.
Chavez-DeRemer was selected by Trump after heavy lobbying from the Teamsters union, in a nod to the president’s unusual inroads with some parts of the labor movement. But labor experts point to major setbacks for unions under the current administration.
Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.
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