Congressional Democrats are gearing to challenge the Trump administration’s shakeup of the federal workforce as the majority party in both the House and Senate.
Following major wins in Tuesday’s midterm elections, lawmakers in the minority party so far under President Donald Trump’s second term are preparing to take on committee leadership roles that will make it harder for the administration to keep reshaping the federal government.
As a sign of what’s to come, House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott, D-Va., sent notices on Wednesday to the heads of 10 federal departments and agencies that fall under the committee’s jurisdiction, reminding them of their obligation under the Federal Records Act to preserve all records that may be in the public interest.
“The American people have given Congress a clear mandate to root out waste, fraud, and abuse within the Administration,” Scott wrote in letters to agency heads.
Scott and other congressional Democrats outlined plans in September to block the Trump administration from finalizing its work to dismantle the Education Department. The department through a series of interagency agreements has shipped personnel and programs off to other agencies, but permanently shuttering the agency would require congressional approval.
Scott said in a statement that the administration “has moved to dismantle the Department of Education while eviscerating the programs students and teachers rely on.”
“As the top Democrat on the Committee, I intend to hold this Administration accountable by calling them to answer for their actions. I will use Congress’ oversight tools and leave no stone unturned as I fight for policies that actually deliver for the American public,” he added.
In a “dear colleagues” letter, House VA Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano, D-Calif., is seeking support for his bid to become the committee’s chairman. Under this administration, Takano led a series of “shadow hearings” on the VA held by committee Democrats without the involvement of the committee’s majority.
“We have not been daunted in our effort to drive the agenda, highlight issues of concern to veterans and to us, and hold this administration accountable for their abuse of power,” Takano wrote.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told the Trump administration to “lawyer up” in a statement Tuesday evening.
Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute, said that so far under the second Trump administration, “the majority in the Congress has not been willing to check it.”
“This is a target-rich environment. Wherever you look, you’re going to find major problems with the way the Trump administration is running or failing to run the government. But having a hearing, getting information, doing all that type of work, is a skillset. Being able to run a committee, to be able to get information, to be able to use the mechanisms of power to deal with the obfuscation that will come as result from the White House, that is a skillset [and] it is unclear to what extent the the Democrats will possess it, and how long it will take them to learn how to use it,” Schuman said.
Michael Hettinger, founding principal at Hettinger Strategy Group, who served as chief of staff to former Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia and a former House Government Reform subcommittee staff director, said that the committee’s new Democratic majority is likely to investigate a wide range of topics.
“You’re going to see a lot of activity from Garcia and his team on the subpoena front,” Hettinger said. “Some of that’s going to involve tech companies and various investigations that they want to conduct around the [White House] ballroom and no-bid contracts, things like that.”
At the subcommittee level, Hettinger said lawmakers will tackle “bread and butter” issues like federal IT and the federal workforce. He said it remains to be seen whether Democrats on the committee will relitigate the legacy of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) or if they focus more on future steps to rebuild the federal workforce.
“It comes down to how aggressive the chairman wants to be, how aggressive some of the subcommittee chairs will want to be in terms of those sorts of things … If you want to have a spectacle, bringing in an Elon Musk or somebody along those lines will give you a spectacle … But there’s still going to be basic blocking-and-tackling things that I always consider the real work of the oversight committee,” Hettinger said.
In the coming weeks, both parties in the House and Senate will hold internal elections for majority and minority leadership positions, respectively.
“I always preach to whoever the incoming chair is, Republican or Democrat, don’t forget that there’s real government operations oversight that needs to be done. Don’t just get lost in the investigations agenda,” Hettinger said.
A former Health and Human Services Department official who left the federal government in 2025 told Government Executive it remains to be seen how much the federal workforce factors into Democrats’ oversight agenda.
“We are tired of hearing that bureaucrats are no one’s priority,” the former official said. “We have spent our whole lives caring about the nation. Now we’re the people who need help.”
The outgoing Congress must also address an upcoming deadline to avoid a government shutdown. Lawmakers passed a stopgap spending bill in September to keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11.
The current Republican majority is likely to push for a spending deal that locks in agency spending cuts, while Democrats are likely to seek another continuing resolution that would punt a comprehensive appropriations package into early 2027.
“Any of the 12 appropriation bills that are still pending, it’s going to be really hard to get anything done by Dec. 11 or by the end of this Congress,” Hettinger said. “Honestly, it’s going to be hard to get much of anything done with a divided government. Spending bills are always going to be top of mind. Anything else that’s going to get done is going to have to have bipartisan support.”
