Labor Nominee Wields Personal Touch to Win Over Unions and Trump

When Lori Chavez-DeRemer walked into a meeting with Oregon Teamsters earlier this year, she brought a long-time member of the union—her father—as backup.

In a bold endorsement pitch to union leaders, the Republican congresswoman spoke in reverential terms of her familial ties to the Teamsters and the labor movement, according to two people in the room.

It worked.

“Every time we met her, we felt that warmth and sincerity in her voice,” said Steve Konopa, a board trustee for the Portland-area Teamsters Joint Council 37. “You can’t coach that, you can’t teach that. You either have it or you don’t.”

The stunt offers a window into Chavez-DeRemer’s calculated pursuit of organized labor that defined her time in Congress and eventually propelled her to become President-elect Donald Trump’s unlikely pick for Secretary of Labor. Now, Chavez-DeRemer will have the tougher task of finding her footing under a president who has been hostile to unions in most of his policies, yet gained support among blue-collar workers.

Her tenure could either transform the Republican Party’s relationship with unions or relegate her to the back bench of the Cabinet. She won the Teamsters endorsement by a single vote of the board—cementing her status as the only union-backed Republican in Congress by the thinnest of margins.

Suburban Mayor

In 2018, it looked like Chavez-DeRemer was finished with politics. She had lost a second race for the state house, against the same opponent, by a bigger margin. After eight years, she was done being mayor of Happy Valley, Ore., a well-off Portland suburb of 28,000.

A white-collar town in the shadow of snow-capped Mt. Hood, Happy Valley isn’t the kind of place many expect to produce a pro-union Republican.

“Happy Valley is not a union town—she doesn’t need to pander,” said former state Rep. Brian Clem (D). After meeting her, he said, he could only conclude that her pro-union views were a personal conviction.

Her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband, Shawn DeRemer, owns a business that provides anesthesia services to medical facilities. He’s a doctor; Chavez-DeRemer has said she dropped out of medical school to support him.

State records show she worked as a substitute teacher and a medical receptionist, and spent two years selling wine before being elected to the city council.

Candidate filings and business directories show Chavez-DeRemer and her husband own Evolve Health, which bills itself as an “innovative interventional psychiatry” clinic. Among other things, Evolve offers intravenous treatment of Ketamine, an anesthetic that’s both used recreationally and studied as a treatment for depression.

Chavez-DeRemer served as a business coordinator for Evolve Health from 2019 until she was elected to Congress, and separately as marketing director for her husband’s medical practice, records show.

The Trump transition team and Chavez-DeRemer’s congressional office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.

Chavez-DeRemer ran for the state legislature in 2016 and lost to Janelle Bynum by 2 percentage points, then lost by 8 percentage points to Bynum again in 2018.

Yet an opportunity emerged when Oregon redrew congressional lines for 2022, with the new 5th District including both Portland suburbs and rural areas. This time, she won.

Chavez-DeRemer has shown she will toe the Republican party line. She refused to disavow Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, sidestepping questions and leaning on innuendo.

“The fact that there are millions of Americans that doubt the integrity of the 2020 election should concern all of us,” she told the Oregonian in April 2022.

Bynum defeated Chavez-DeRemer in the 2024 House election.

On the Hill

Once in Congress, Chavez-DeRemer earned a reputation for working with Democrats.

She supported a renovation of the shipping port in Coos Bay, Ore.—slated to create as many as 8,000 jobs—helping Val Hoyle, the Democrat in a neighboring district, get re-elected, said Clem, the former state lawmaker involved in the project.

Hoyle said the two got along better than expected.

“She’s just a regular person,” Hoyle said. “She’s got tats. She’s got a working-class spirit.”

Several people in Oregon politics described Chavez-DeRemer as a good listener who carefully studies issues before taking a stance and knows how to talk to union members.

“When you’re talking about apprenticeship, she gets it,” said James Anderson of Operating Engineers Local 701 near Portland. “When you talk to her about the prevailing wage, she gets it. And she’s studied it.”

Chavez-DeRemer may be best known as one of three Republicans to support the PRO Act, the Democrats’ pro-worker overhaul of labor laws.

Austin DePaolo, secretary treasurer of a Portland-area Teamsters local, said that, more than anything, persuaded him to back her for reelection after the meeting with her father.

“I was a little skeptical, but she knows how to connect with people,” he said.

An Unlikely Alliance

Her stance on the PRO Act also caught the attention of Teamsters lobbyists at headquarters in Washington, according to a person familiar with the union’s thinking.

While she faced backlash from business groups, it struck other Republicans as a fresh approach.

Cosponsoring the bill “puts you at the table to work on fair amendments,” said Julie Parrish, a former Republican state lawmaker who lives in her district. “She’s pragmatic like that.”

In July 2023, Chavez-DeRemer also made the unusual move to sign a Congressional Labor Caucus letter supporting a national Teamsters strike against UPS if drivers couldn’t reach a deal with management.

Her union relationships paid off after her loss in November. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien met with Republican lawmakers Nov. 19 to pitch the idea of Chavez-DeRemer for labor secretary. He then flew with her to Trump’s Palm Beach home for a formal interview.

They posed for a photo with the president-elect, sporting a wide yellow tie, a wide grin, and a thumbs up.