Trump fired the Librarian of Congress. Now Democrats want to change the hiring process

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has reignited an effort in Congress to wrest back power from the executive branch and assert more control over legislative branch agency heads.

Democratic lawmakers blasted Trump’s decision, and some are vowing to change the way positions like the librarian of Congress are hired and fired.

“We must assert our congressional prerogative by making the position of Librarian of Congress appointed by a congressional commission — not by presidents that treat federal appointments like reality TV prizes,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Thursday.

“Given Donald Trump’s unprecedented and brazen assault on the legislative branch, Congress must consider all of its options to respond, including legislation reforming the appointment and removal of legislative agency officials,” Senate Rules and Administration ranking member Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said Friday in a statement.

And Rep. Joseph D. Morelle, ranking member of the House Administration Committee, said he plans to introduce legislation on the topic as soon as next week.

The first woman and the first Black American to lead the Library of Congress, Hayden began her career as a children’s librarian in Chicago in the 1970s and helmed the public library system in Baltimore before she was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2016. She was fired via an email from the White House a little before 7 p.m. Thursday, more than a year before her 10-year term was set to expire. Principal deputy librarian Robert Newlen is acting in the role until further instruction, according to a library spokesperson.

“We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people. There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in pursuit of DEI,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Friday briefing. “We don’t believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer well.”

Democratic groups have characterized the firing as a political attack, in keeping with the Trump administration’s crusade against other cultural institutions nationwide.

Trump is “taking his assault on America’s libraries to a new level,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, in a statement.

Beyond what it means for the largest library in the nation, some see it as a key point in the power struggle between two branches of government.

“The second branch should not choose the head of agencies in the first branch,” said Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute. “The Librarian of Congress should be chosen by Congress. The head of GAO should be chosen by Congress. The head of GPO should be chosen by Congress.”

Donald Sherman, executive director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said lawmakers need to buck Trump at some point on this and other issues, like his firing of federal inspectors general without notifying Congress.

“This will continue until Congress stands up and says no, and it will continue with impunity,” Sherman said.

The Library of Congress, Government Accountability Office and Government Publishing Office are all legislative branch agencies with directors appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Until recently, the same was true of the Architect of the Capitol.

That changed last Congress after a scandal involving the former agency head, J. Brett Blanton. A 2022 inspector general report alleged that Blanton had abused his office in a litany of ways, including misrepresenting himself as a law enforcement officer and misusing a government-issued vehicle. Despite calls for his resignation, and amid confusion from lawmakers over how to get rid of him, Blanton remained in the role until a fiery House Administration hearing in February 2023 attracted more attention to his alleged misdeeds. Days later, President Joe Biden fired him.

In the aftermath of the Blanton saga, a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers pushed to overhaul the process for appointing architects of the Capitol, vowing to avoid a repeat.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Deb Fischer, R-Neb., then the leaders of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and Reps. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., and Morelle, who still head the House Administration Committee, led a measure that gave a congressional commission sole power to appoint or remove an architect.

That change was included in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that was enacted in December 2023. And several months later, the commission appointed Thomas Austin as the new architect of the Capitol.

“Given the far-reaching scope of the role, it’s essential for Congress to have the authority to appoint and remove the Architect,” Klobuchar said in a statement at the time. “This legislation will strengthen congressional oversight of the office of the Architect of the Capitol and ensure it is accountable to Congress.”

Even before Hayden’s firing and Trump’s second term, Congress was considering other ways to move appointment power away from the executive branch, according to a Senate Democratic aide. Morelle raised the issue earlier this week during a House Administration oversight hearing at which Hayden testified.

“Let’s be clear, it’s the Library of Congress. As a legislative branch agency, it is wholly independent of the executive branch, and yet I find it mystifying, or at least incongruous, that the president, not Congress, appoints the librarian,” Morelle said.

In an email Friday, he said the legislation he plans to introduce would also extend to GPO and GAO.

Although the AOC hiring overhaul was bipartisan, it’s unclear in the current political moment whether Republicans would throw their weight behind the new proposal. “I hope all members are concerned about the continued erosion of our Article 1 constitutional prerogatives that we see today,” Morelle wrote.

Steil and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who took the reins of Senate Rules and Administration this year, did not respond to a request for comment. Some conservatives, however, defended Trump’s decision to remove Hayden.

“As we know, the President has the clear authority to appoint who serves in the role as the Librarian of Congress. Whoever the President nominates for the next Librarian will be someone I look forward to working with,” said Rep. Robert B. Aderholt, R-Ala., a co-chair of the Congressional Library of Congress Caucus, in a statement.

Tom Jones, a former Republican Senate staffer and executive director of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative research group, had advocated for Hayden’s firing earlier this year, claiming her political leanings made her unfit for the job.

“The Library of Congress — it’s in the name — it exists to serve Congress,” Jones said. “Unfortunately, the librarian is an aggressive liberal ideologue. … That just doesn’t serve Congress well.”

Jones said he circulated an email to “policymakers across Washington” earlier this month listing his gripes against Hayden and Shira Perlmutter, who leads the U.S. Copyright Office, housed within the Library of Congress. He alleged Hayden had “used the library as a tool to promote children having access to books on sexual identity — one of the pillars of the trans community’s radical gender identity campaign.” He also said Hayden had promoted “anti-Trump leftists” and groups associated with social justice causes.

Schuman, for his part, said he had frustrations with Hayden’s time at the library, including lingering dysfunction and high staff turnover at the Congressional Research Service. But he characterized her as a steady hand who inherited an institution at a rough time — after the headline-grabbing departure of former Librarian James H. Billington — and moved it in a positive direction.

“I think almost all members of Congress universally like her. She provided tons of services for them. She was very responsive to them,” Schuman said. “She did not deserve to be fired.”