Beltway Buzz, November 21, 2025

Senate Committee Postpones Vote on NLRB. This week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) was forced to postpone a scheduled vote to advance the nomination of Scott Mayer to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Republicans hold a slim 12–11 voting majority on the HELP Committee, meaning that a loss of just one vote could make it challenging to approve any nominee. Mayer’s nomination thus lags behind fellow Board nominee James Murphy and NLRB general counsel nominee, Crystal Carey, both of whom have already been approved by the committee and await a vote on the Senate floor.

President Trump Sends EEOC GC Nominee to Senate. President Donald Trump has nominated management attorney M. Carter Crow to serve as general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Given the administration’s theory that the Commission is not an independent agency but rather firmly within the executive branch, if confirmed, Carter can likely be expected to pursue an enforcement agenda that tracks with EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas’s priorities (which align with those of the administration). The Commission’s previous acting general counsel, Andrew Rogers, is now the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Principal deputy general counsel, Catherine Eshbach, is currently performing the duties of the general counsel at the Commission. T. Scott Kelly, Nonnie L. Shivers, James J. Plunkett, and Zachary V. Zagger have the details.

Senator Seeks Changes to OPT. According to the administration’s Spring 2025 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, in September of this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was scheduled to issue a proposed regulation to amend the Optional Training Practical (OPT) Program. The program provides F-1 student visa holders with one year of work authorization after graduation, and an additional two years if they graduate with a STEM degree. In anticipation of the pending regulatory proposal, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow, encouraging them to “conduct a thorough review of the OPT program to begin the process of either reforming or ending OPT.” Senator Schmitt reasoned that “OPT was created (and then expanded) by unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch, without the input or approval of Congress, circumventing the caps and limits that govern employment-based visas” and can therefore “be overhauled or ended by executive action.”

House Committee Examines E-Verify. On November 19, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing, titled, “E-Verify: Ensuring Lawful Employment in America.” As the title implies, the hearing explored ways to improve the E-Verify system while considering a nationwide mandate, with a particular focus on the construction industry. Witnesses noted that continuing errors within the E-Verify system, as well as identity theft and fraud, need to be addressed. They further suggested that E-Verify automatically send alerts when an employee no longer has work authorization, and that compliance assistance should be provided to make the system accessible to and work for small businesses. Other witnesses warned that a nationwide E-Verify mandate could have negative impacts on workers and the broader economy. The Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 251), a bill that was introduced in January 2025, would mandate E-Verify for all employers.

House Committee Advances Employment Legislation. As a follow-up to its March 25, 2025, hearing on the future of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), on November 20, 2025, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced the following FLSA-related bills:

• Working Families Flexibility Act of 2025 (H.R. 2870). This bill would provide private-sector employees with the option of choosing paid time off instead of overtime pay. Republicans have introduced a companion bill in the Senate. A version of the bill passed the House of Representatives in 2017.
• Tipped Employee Protection Act (H.R. 2312). This bill would amend the FLSA to clarify the definition of “tipped employee.” Accordingly, the bill would limit the DOL’s ability to issue regulations interpreting the definition, such as the 2021 “80/20” regulation.
• Ensuring Workers Get PAID Act of 2025 (H.R. 2299). This bill would codify the DOL’s Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program, which incentivizes employers to audit their payroll and leave practices and self-report mistakes to the DOL.

The Buzz will be monitoring these bills and will provide updates should they gain any traction in Congress.

Susan B. Anthony, ‘Criminal.’ On November 18, 1872, women’s rights activist and suffragist, Susan B. Anthony, was arrested in her hometown of Rochester, New York, for voting in that year’s presidential election (in which incumbent Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horace Greeley). At the time, New York law prohibited women from voting. While not expecting to be arrested—Anthony thought she would be denied the opportunity to cast a ballot and would then file a lawsuit—she used the period between her arrest and trial date to generate publicity for the women’s suffrage movement. Anthony argued that the recently ratified 14th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote, and she turned her attorney’s oral argument at a pretrial hearing into a pamphlet that she distributed to newspapers. Associate Supreme Court Justice Ward Hunt had responsibility over the federal court in New York and presided over the trial. On June 18, 1873, Hunt issued a directed verdict against Anthony and ordered her to pay a $100 fine, which she never paid. Anthony’s arrest and trial were galvanizing moments in the women’s suffrage movement and the broader movement for women’s rights, though the goal of securing voting rights for women in the United States was not fully realized for another forty-five–plus years, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920, and several more decades when women of color gained the right to vote throughout the United States.

The Buzz will be on hiatus for the Thanksgiving holiday and will return on December 5, 2025.