Democrats on the Senate budget committee boycotted Thursday’s vote to advance Russell Vought’s nomination to head the office of management and budget, calling Vought a threat to democracy and writing in a statement that they refused to “vote for someone so clearly unfit for office”.
Senate Democrats had urged a delay on Vought’s confirmation hearings after the office Donald Trump nominated him to lead ordered a freeze on federal grant funding. Issued on Monday by the acting director of the office of management and budget and rescinded on Wednesday, the order would have potentially impacted critical programs that receive federal aid, including Head Start and Meals on Wheels.
But Republican lawmakers have plowed ahead with Vought’s confirmation, and Republican members of the Senate budget committee held the vote anyway on Thursday without any Democrats present. Vought’s confirmation will move to the full Senate after the 11-0 committee vote.
During a press conference on Thursday, Senate Democrats called Vought a threat to democracy and decried their Republican colleagues’ decision to continue to hold a vote.
“Mr Vought will be the architect of more losing for President Trump,” said Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer.
Democrats on the budget committee pointed to Vought – a co-author of Project 2025 and a proponent of swingeing budgetary cuts and the consolidation of executive authority – as a source of inspiration for the funding freeze memo.
In a Monday letter, Senator Patty Murray and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro – the top Democrats on the Senate and House budget committees – wrote that Trump’s efforts to freeze congressionally approved federal grant funding appeared to be “guided by the same philosophy” that Vought had espoused in his writings about the federal government.
In the letter, Murray and DeLauro called the actions “unlawful” and warned that they could “have devastating consequences across the country”.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has issued a flurry of executive orders and communications taking aim at federal employees.
A 20 January executive order required agencies to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming, and subsequent internal communications urged workers to report on colleagues who violated the order, reportedly triggering fear and panic among the federal workforce.
