House Republicans Postpone Votes on Key Bills. On April 1, 2025, Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives canceled all remaining votes for the week after they failed to squash an effort within their own ranks to allow new parents in the House to vote by proxy. The unexpected abbreviated work week means that anticipated votes on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (a bill that passed the House in July 2024 that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections) and the No Rogue Rulings Act (a bill that would prohibit federal district courts from issuing orders providing for injunctive relief beyond the parties to the litigation, meaning no nationwide injunctions) have been postponed. The Buzz will continue to monitor these bills when the House returns to Washington, D.C.

President Trump Sends Nominations for WHD Administrator, DOL Solicitor, to Senate. The political appointee picture at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) continues to come into focus. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling are already in place. Previously, the Buzz discussed President Donald Trump’s nominees to run the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), as well as the Employment and Training Administration (ETA). This week, President Trump:

• Nominated Andrew Rogers to serve as administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD). Rogers served in the WHD during the first Trump administration before moving to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where he served as chief counsel to Commissioner Andrea Lucas. He has served as the Commission’s acting general counsel since February 4, 2025.
• Nominated Jonathan Berry to serve as solicitor of labor, which is essentially the DOL’s top attorney. Berry served as the head of the DOL’s regulatory department in the first Trump administration, and also previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Immigration News. The latest news on employment-based immigration policy includes the following:

• H-1B Registration Completed; Petition Period Begins. Claudia P. Martorell and Sidra E. Cheema have the details on the closing of the H-1B registration period and the opening—beginning April 1, 2025—of the ninety-day petition filing period with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
• Bill Would Eliminate OPT. A group of nine Republicans in the House have introduced the ‘‘Fairness for High Skilled Americans Act of 2025’’ (HR 2315), which would eliminate the Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 students. The OPT program provides F-1 students with up to three years of work authorization after graduation. The bill should not be confused with an identically named bill that has been introduced in previous congresses that would eliminate the 7 percent per-country cap for employment-based visas and make significant changes to the H-1B visa program.
• Judge Blocks Vacatur of TPS Designation Venezuela. A federal district court in California temporarily blocked Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s recent rescission of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for certain individuals from Venezuela. The judge determined, in part, that the TPS statute “does not permit the Secretary to terminate a TPS designation ‘midstream’ during the term of the prior designation.” Protected status from deportation for covered individuals was scheduled to terminate on April 7, 2025. Amanda M. Mullane and Daniela Medrano Sullivan have the details.

House Republicans Introduce Labor Bills. House Republicans have introduced bills that address union organizing through the use of “salts,” as well as voting in union representation elections:

• Union Salts. Republican Representative Burgess Owens (UT) reintroduced the Start Applying Labor Transparency (SALT) Act, which would require more transparency from union salts, who are professional union organizers who seek employment only in order to organize employees. The Buzz wrote about the SALT Act in 2024.
• Representation Elections. Representative Bob Onder (R-MO) introduced the Worker Enfranchisement Act, which would allow a union to become the exclusive bargaining representative of employees only if it wins a majority of votes cast in a secret ballot election “in which not less than two-thirds of such employees vote.” Currently, unions can become the representative of an entire bargaining unit—impacting the terms and conditions of all employees in that unit—if they win a majority of the votes cast, no matter how poor the voter turnout is.

Remembering Justice Reed. On April 2, 1980, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Stanley Forman Reed passed away. While perhaps not as well-known as some of his contemporaries, Reed enjoyed quite a legal career. After serving in the United States Army in World War I, Reed returned to his Kentucky home where he carved out a legal career representing agricultural interests. This led to his 1929 appointment by President Herbert Hoover to serve as general counsel of the Federal Farm Board. In 1932, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Reed as general counsel of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and then, in 1935, as solicitor general of the United States. Here is where things got interesting for Reed:

• As solicitor general, Reed was tasked with defending many of FDR’s New Deal programs. Among other cases, Reed argued and won West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) (the “switch in time that saved nine,” by upholding minimum wage laws) and National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation (1937) (upholding the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act).
• Reed argued and lost A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States (1935), also known as the “sick chicken” case.
• While defending New Deal programs, Reed once argued six cases before the Supreme Court in a span of two weeks, collapsing from exhaustion during the middle of one of the arguments in December of 1935.
• In 1938, FDR nominated Reed to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, where he served until his retirement in 1957.
• In 1949, as a sitting justice on the Court, Reed served as a character witness on behalf of Alger Hiss, who was being tried for perjury in connection to accusations that Hiss was a spy for the Soviet Union. Hiss had served under Reed at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
• Reed is the last serving justice who did not graduate from law school. (He attended law school, but he did not graduate).