Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins thinks Congress needs to take charge in naming the heads of major legislative branch agencies, including the Library of Congress and Government Accountability Office.
“I think what we’re going to have to do with some of these organizations — like the Library of Congress, GAO — is have Congress appoint the head, to make it crystal clear that these are congressional entities,” the Maine Republican told reporters Wednesday.
The decisive words from a senior GOP lawmaker signal the growing appetite on Capitol Hill for Congress to claw back hiring and firing power for leaders of key congressional support agencies, which now rests with the president.
The new evaluation of the status quo comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s abrupt firings of the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, and the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter. Leadership of the library remains in limbo after Trump attempted to appoint allies from the Justice Department to leadership within the library.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative has also in recent weeks attempted to gain access to multiple legislative branch entities, including the GAO, which roots out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government; the Government Publishing Office; and the Hill office that fields and manages complaints about discrimination, harassment, accessibility and other workplace issues.
Collins described GAO as an “organization that serves and responds to Congress. And I do not think it’s appropriate for DOGE to be trying to reorganize it or enter it in any way.”
She said, however, that she has not been in touch with Musk or other DOGE officials about these efforts.
The president currently has the power to nominate a librarian of Congress and the comptroller general, the title for the head of GAO. Those nominees require Senate approval. There is broad agreement on both sides of the aisle that firing power for those presidential-appointed roles lies with the president, but there is some bipartisan interest in changing that.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is the highest-ranking lawmaker so far to nod at the possible need for legislation to clarify and solidify congressional authority over leadership of these key agencies under Capitol Hill’s explicit purview.
“There needs to be a consultation around this,” Thune told reporters last week. “There are equities that both Article One and Article Two branches have when it comes to the Library of Congress, and it might suggest that in future, we may need to delineate those more clearly.”
Congress made a similar move to solidify congressional control over the architect of the Capitol role in recent years. It came about as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were pushing for removal of Architect of the Capitol Brett Blanton amid revelations of misconduct and misuse of resources, but they had to wait for then-President Joe Biden to fire him.
“Just like we changed the rules with architect the Capitol, we should change them here,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told reporters.
Klobuchar authored the bill that changed how the architect of the Capitol is hired and fired, making it a Congress-only process and cutting out presidential involvement. Many Democrats in both chambers have voiced support for such legislation to apply the same standard to the the librarian of Congress.
Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.
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