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{"id":5427,"date":"2025-01-28T21:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T21:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-dig-in-their-heels-on-nominees-amid-spending-freeze-chaos\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T21:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T21:51:14","slug":"democrats-dig-in-their-heels-on-nominees-amid-spending-freeze-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-dig-in-their-heels-on-nominees-amid-spending-freeze-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats dig in their heels on nominees amid spending freeze chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A batch of Democrats incensed with President Donald Trump&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/subscriber.politicopro.com\/article\/2025\/01\/omb-funding-freeze-trump-00200943\" target=\"_blank\">latest decision to pause federal spending<\/a> voted against his otherwise benign nominee for Transportation secretary on Tuesday, the first brick in what some of them promise will be a wall of opposition until funds are uncorked.<\/p>\n<p>An OMB memo stipulating that federal agencies should temporarily halt paying out grants and loans as of 5 p.m. Tuesday threw Washington into chaos amid a scramble to figure out what exactly is being impacted. As the Capitol reeled, many Democratic lawmakers took their frustration out <a href=\"https:\/\/subscriber.politicopro.com\/article\/2025\/01\/sean-duffy-confirmed-as-transportation-secretary-despite-dem-protest-votes-00200965\" target=\"_blank\">by voting no on Sean Duffy&#8217;s nomination<\/a> to head the Transportation Department \u2014 despite having unanimously voted to move his nomination forward less than 24 hours before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUntil I get clarity from this administration about their plans to continue implementing this order, I&#8217;m going to vote against nominees. Until I hear some better path forward on this,\u201d said Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/151823\" data-person-id=\"151823\">Chris Coons<\/a> (D-Del.), adding that a federal court injunction would be necessary to ameliorate his concerns. And he questioned whether Duffy would simply be a vessel to implement the order.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My core question is, well, will he implement this unconstitutional order to freeze all transportation project funding, like I&#8217;ve heard from the governor, the mayor, the county executive, the Department of Transportation in Delaware, saying, \u2018Wait, what? You&#8217;re gonna lay off the construction workers who are rebuilding our highways?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/140963\" data-person-id=\"140963\">Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D-Mass.) made a similar pledge, saying she will continue to vote no on Trump\u2019s nominees until Senate Republicans \u201cwake up &#8230; and tell Donald Trump he doesn\u2019t get to own all of government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a process for passing laws, and then those laws are enforced. Donald Trump thinks those laws don\u2019t apply to him? He is wrong,\u201d Warren said. <\/p>\n<p>She added that she\u2019s hearing from mayors in her state \u201cwho aren\u2019t sure if they can spend the money that they are entitled to,\u201d as well as from nonprofits \u201cwho don\u2019t know if they can go forward with their work.\u201d She mentioned a group in her state that receives some federal funding to help homeless veterans transition into permanent housing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They\u2019re not sure if they can run their meal program tonight. That\u2019s the kind of chaos that Donald Trump is creating,\u201d Warren said.<\/p>\n<p>Others didn&#8217;t go so far as to say they&#8217;ll oppose all future nominees, but made clear they would continue to play spoiler.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/198768\" data-person-id=\"198768\">Tammy Duckworth<\/a>, (D-Ill.) said Democrats \u201cwould certainly not cooperate with the Republicans\u201d if the plan is to endorse such a \u201cpower grab\u201d from Trump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe&#8217;s trying to do a power grab so that he can become a dictator,\u201d Duckworth said. \u201cI&#8217;m not going to be party to us having to go back to him and say, \u2018Can you give us money for this? Can you give money to that?\u2019 This has already been appropriated by Congress. If we have the power of the purse, we&#8217;re not going to go down the route of where this is Trump&#8217;s decision of what gets funded,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/151824\" data-person-id=\"151824\">Richard Blumenthal<\/a> (D-Conn.) said \u201cwe&#8217;re going to use every tool we have to uphold the law.\u201d He added that he would \u201coppose, whenever I can, efforts by Republicans to support this illegal power grab.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day, Senate Minority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51231\" data-person-id=\"51231\">Chuck Schumer<\/a> (D-N.Y.) and others in Democratic leadership called on Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51186\" data-person-id=\"51186\">Lindsey Graham<\/a> (R-S.C.) to delay the nomination of Russell Vought as director of OMB &#8220;until he satisfactorily answers questions regarding his advice to the President relating to the illegal impoundment of Congressionally appropriated funds \u2014 questions that have taken on greater urgency in light of OMB\u2019s directive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The White House has insisted that its spending pause memo is not intended to apply to every program and that it is a temporary and prudent measure to reign in profligate spending.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A batch of Democrats incensed with President Donald Trump&#8217;s latest decision to pause federal spending voted against his otherwise benign nominee for Transportation secretary on Tuesday, the first brick in what some of them promise will be a wall of opposition until funds are uncorked. An OMB memo stipulating that federal agencies should temporarily halt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}