LAWYERS FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT OPPOSES NOMINATION OF RUSSELL VOUGHT TO LEAD OMB
January 22, 2025
The Senate Committee on the Budget is holding a committee hearing today on whether to advance the nomination of Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), born in the wake of the 2016 election and representing a network of over 125,000 attorneys nationwide, strongly opposes this nomination. Our opposition is based on three critical concerns: 1) his documented pattern of violating the Constitution and the law; 2) his planned harm to communities; and 3) his clear intention to transfer congressional power to the executive branch.
Constitutional and Legal Violations
During his previous tenure as OMB Director, Vought violated the Impoundment Control Act by attempting to rescind critical funding, effectively attempting to transfer Congress's power of the purse to the Executive Branch. He was prevented only by the US Supreme Court and the Government Accountability Office, neither of which are likely to stop his efforts during a second term.
His likely approach to weaponizing executive power is particularly concerning given his documented support for invoking the Insurrection Act against American citizens and undermining the Justice Department's political independence.
Recent Executive Orders from January 20, 2025, compound these concerns by concentrating unprecedented and misplaced power in the hands of the OMB Director, problematic not only because Russell Vought has a long history of violating the Constitution and the existing rule of law, but doing so in a way that will traumatize both civil servants and the communities they serve, including a significant number of rural communities. These orders include:
A National Energy Emergency declaration giving the OMB Director authority to rescind regulations under critical environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, effectively eradicating these laws without Congressional approval.
An order placing the OMB Director in charge of eliminating diversity and inclusion policies, which will put thousands of people out of work and will allow for past racial hiring practices to come back in force, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Regulatory Review and Hiring Freeze orders that centralize regulatory review power within OMB under the Director.
The Unleashing American Energy order, which suggests that the Director of OMB would have both the power to review disbursements that Congress already approved and appropriated and to circumvent the National Environmental Policy Act. Any efforts to immediately halt funding will cause direct harm to communities across the country, particularly rural communities.
Harm to Americans
As OMB Director, Vought's record shows a clear pattern of targeting vulnerable communities and critical social programs. His budget proposals included over $2.3 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in FY 2020, followed by additional proposed cuts of $451 billion from Medicare and $920 billion from Medicaid in FY 2021. He repeatedly ignored agency expertise and blocked implementation of crucial programs, including obstructing Congress-approved disaster relief funds for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, despite strong objections from Housing and Urban Development officials.
His current role as a key architect directing roughly 1,000 people working on Project 2025 demonstrates concrete plans to further erode governmental safeguards and regulatory protections that ensure public health, safety, and environmental protection. And the rash of Executive Orders delivered on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day telegraphs his clear intention to implement all of Project 2025, which would cause direct harm to communities by eliminating federal funding to rural districts for disaster relief and recovery.
Additionally, Vought has demonstrated explicit antagonism toward career civil servants, particularly through his attempts to implement Schedule F, which would have stripped essential job protections from thousands of federal employees. His public statements expressing intent to traumatize civil servants working at the Environmental Protection Agency and make them "increasingly viewed as villains" threatens the stability of our federal workforce and undermines the rule of law that our government employees are sworn to uphold.
Unconstitutional Power Grab from Congress
Recent Executive Orders from January 20, 2025 would concentrate unprecedented power in the OMB Director position, in an attempt to transfer clear Congressional power to the Executive Branch. Of particular concern is that OMB is the umbrella agency for the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which has overseen implementation of a President's regulatory agenda by government agencies. This combination would grant Vought an extraordinary concentration of power that he would likely use to further his own far-right agenda and to dismantle the federal government as we know it.
The "Unleashing American Energy" Executive Order demonstrates their intention to take an even more drastic approach to implement Project 2025. This order would give the OMB Director power to review every disbursement that Congress has already approved and appropriated, while also circumventing the National Environmental Policy Act governing environmental project reviews. In short, the Executive Order would transfer federal funding authorization power from Congress to Russell Vought and the President, while enabling actions that violate the Constitution and well-established, critically important law. This fundamentally violates how the federal government works.
L4GG calls on the Senate to reject this nomination and protect our constitutional framework, vulnerable communities, and congressional authority. The OMB requires leadership that respects constitutional boundaries, values career expertise, and upholds the rule of law. Vought's record demonstrates he would do none of these.
Ordinarily, the OMB Director’s nomination would not raise much attention as it is traditionally held by an appointee whose sole focus is on the efficient and smooth operation of federal agencies and government. But in the wake of these Executive Orders and this particular candidate’s desire to completely eviscerate long-standing federal agencies, this nomination may ultimately decide the fate of the federal government as we know it.