During the first meeting of the Senate DOGE caucus, Sen. Joni Ernst plans to highlight one of Republicans’ favorite bureaucratic boogeymen: remote work.
Ernst (R-Iowa), the head of the caucus, is sharing a 60-page report, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, in the group’s meeting on Thursday, focused on reforming telework and shedding unused or underused government offices.
“The American people gave us a mandate to shake up business as usual in Washington and drain the swamp. That starts with getting the bureaucrat class to climb out of the bubble bath, put away the golf clubs, and get back to work,” Ernst said in a statement to POLITICO.
Some of the ideas Ernst focuses on in her report, as well as a separate one-pager, include examples of federal employees receiving incorrect locality pay, which is determined by their official work site, as well as relocating federal employees and consolidating federal office space. That includes proposing Congress pass legislation to move the headquarters of several departments and agencies outside of Washington.
She also wants President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Cabinet and agency heads to share their daily schedules publicly and detail how they will get a 60 percent utilization rate for their headquarters.
The Senate DOGE caucus meeting comes as the two heads of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, are set to have their first large-scale meeting with House and Senate Republicans on Thursday since Trump tapped them to lead the out-of-government effort aimed at reforming and cutting the size of the federal government.
Ernst has already met with Trump’s DOGE team and sent them a letter proposing areas for cutting spending last month.
Congressional Republicans have rushed to embrace the DOGE mission, even as the actual authority of the panel remains murky. In addition to the Senate DOGE caucus, the House has formed its own DOGE caucus that got its first Democratic members this week. The House Oversight Committee also established a subcommittee to coordinate with DOGE that will be led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Musk, Ramaswamy and DOGE have been tasked with coordinating with the White House. Many of their proposals will also need congressional buy-in, though they’ve floated trying to challenge the Impoundment Control Act to allow Trump to bypass Congress on spending cuts. And while Republicans tasked with funding the government might be skeptical, they haven’t shut the door yet on their ideas.
“My job is to work with the president, not against the president,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters recently.
