The Beltway Buzz™ is a weekly update summarizing labor and employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how what’s happening in Washington, D.C., could impact your business.
President Trump Addresses Congress. On March 4, 2025, President Donald Trump delivered an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Although the State of the Union–like address was short on specifics, President Trump mentioned a few issues that caught our attention at the Buzz.
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and Accessibility. President Trump did not reveal any new policy initiatives in this area, but his discussion of the topic further demonstrates that the administration views this as a winning political issue. Consequently, employers—including federal contractors—should expect the administration to continue moving forward with anti-DEI policy initiatives already set in place, including an appeal of a federal court’s decision to block three components of two DEI-related executive orders.
- Gold Cards. President Trump touted this nascent policy idea that would purportedly allow foreign nationals to buy permanent residency in the United States (a “gold card”) for $5 million. Would this replace the EB-5 investor program or exist alongside it? Nobody knows because the proposed policy hasn’t been presented in written detail. This would likely take an act of Congress, too.
- No Tax on Tips or Overtime. This is an issue that both parties brought up on the campaign trail in 2024 and was reemphasized by President Trump. Legislation has been introduced in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. But questions of where to draw the lines around who could take advantage of such a policy, the potential fiscal impact, and general tax fairness will have to be resolved before the bills move forward.
Court Reinstates NLRB Member Wilcox. On March 6, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the reinstatement of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Member Gwynne Wilcox, whom President Trump fired on January 7, 2025. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) allows for the removal of Board members “upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” In this case, the administration did not argue that Wilcox was removed for neglect of duty or malfeasance, but instead argued that this provision acted as an unconstitutional restriction on the authority of the executive branch. Ruling that the protection from removal contained in the NLRA “is a valid exercise of congressional power,” the court stated, “The President does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire plaintiff from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law.” Accordingly, the court ordered Wilcox to be reinstated to her position on the Board. The administration will assuredly appeal. C. Thomas Davis and Zachary V. Zagger have the details.
Update on Government Funding. The federal government will shut down at midnight on March 15, 2025, if Congress does not come to an agreement on federal appropriations. Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are expected to move a continuing resolution that would extend current funding through September of this year. Of course, anything can happen with the way politics works these days. In the meantime, readers can remind themselves of what happens to labor/employment and immigration agencies in the event of a shutdown.
Bipartisan Team of Senators Seeks Government Control Over Labor Contracts. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has teamed up with Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH), as well as Democratic Senators Cory Booker (NJ), Gary Peters (MI), and Jeff Merkley (OR), to introduce the Faster Labor Contracts Act, a smaller component of Senator Hawley’s larger labor reform framework. The bill would do the following:
- Require employers to begin bargaining within ten days of receiving a request to do so from the exclusive bargaining representative of its employees.
- If an employer and union could not reach an agreement on a contract after ninety days, either party would be able to request the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) to mediate.
- If after thirty days of FMCS-facilitated bargaining, the parties still could not come to an agreement, a three-member FMCS panel would be empowered to “render a decision settling the dispute and such decision shall be binding upon the parties for a period of 2 years, unless amended during such period by written consent of the parties.”
If this sounds a lot like the Employee Free Choice Act and the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, you’re correct, so it is no surprise that the bill is supported by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Business groups have roundly criticized the bill. The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which describes the Faster Labor Contracts Act as a “horrible bill,” states that “[a]rbitrators, many of whom know nothing about running a business or the specifics of the business in question, could impose devastating terms for the employer or workers, and there would be no means of stopping them from running a business into the ground.”
PRO Act Reintroduced. Speaking of the PRO Act, the legislation was reintroduced in Congress this week. In a blog post discussing the bill, Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce wrote, “The PRO Act is bad for workers and bad for job creators.” With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, the bill is unlikely to gain much traction.
DOL Nominee Advances. This week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) voted along party lines to advance the nomination of Keith Sonderling to be deputy secretary of labor. Sonderling previously served as a commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and in the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division. Accordingly, many in the business community are hopeful that Sonderling will play a significant role in setting the policy agenda of the DOL.
H-1B Registration Opens. Registration for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap opened earlier today (March 7, 2025) and will close on March 24, 2025. This year will be the second go-around under the new beneficiary-centric selection process, but the first year since the registration fee increased from $10 to $215, as well as the first year under the second part of the Biden-era H-1B modernization rule, which among other changes, amended the definition of “specialty occupation.”
Let’s Stay Together. On March 4, 2025, Representative Al Green (D-TX) had to be escorted from the House chamber by the House sergeant at arms for continually interrupting President Trump’s speech to Congress. (Green later became the twenty-eighth representative to be censured in the House.) The sergeant at arms is tasked not only with maintaining decorum in the House, as he did this week, but also with ensuring the safety of members of Congress and those visiting or doing business there. The sergeant at arms is also empowered to compel absent members to the House floor for votes and is famous for announcing the arrival of the president for the State of the Union address, for example. Establishing the position was one of the first acts of the very first Congress in 1789. Since that time, thirty-nine individuals—including the current sergeant at arms, William McFarland—have served in the role. Of those thirty-nine, eight also served as representatives in the House either before or after their duty as sergeants at arms.