Incumbent Democratic Rep. Val Hoyle is running for reelection.
Courtesy of campaign
U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle announced last week she’s leaving the Department of Government Efficiency House caucus. She was one of few Democratic members of DOGE, the new efficiency effort led by Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and other companies.
She told OPB that President Donald Trump has given enormous power to billionaire Elon Musk — including control of the government’s finances — and that they are operating “unconstitutionally and illegally.” Hoyle says Musk’s access to Social Security numbers and other personal information of U.S. citizens, along with names of U.S. agents abroad, represents a grave threat, both domestically and internationally.
On Saturday, a federal judge blocked Musk from accessing Treasury department records containing Americans’ personal data. Hoyle joins us from D.C. to talk about the details and what she’s hearing from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Oregon Congresswoman Val Hoyle announced last week that she is leaving the Department of Government Efficiency’s House caucus. She was one of just three Democratic members of the group that was focused on the new efficiency effort led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Hoyle says she left the caucus because DOGE is acting “unconstitutionally and illegally.” On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked members of Musk’s team from accessing Treasury Department records containing Americans’ personal data. Val Hoyle joins us now. Welcome back to the show.
Val Hoyle: Well, thank you so much.
Miller: Before we talk about the DOGE caucus and the bigger picture, I just want to start with the biggest picture. What have the last three weeks or so in Washington, D.C. been like for you?
Hoyle: I mean, every single hour there’s something else that’s happening as the Trump administration is just inundating and flooding everyone with new executive orders, with outrageous statements, while underneath they’re going into agencies, terrorizing workers, shutting things down. It is really unsettling and unstable. But the key thing that I’m working on is to focus on what’s important, which is not the shiny things that are coming out every minute, but really what damage is being done to the institutions that Americans rely on.
Miller: How did you decide to join the DOGE caucus?
Hoyle: Well, I spoke with Aaron Bean, who is a Republican from Florida, one of the co-chairs of the caucus. And he said, “Look, we want Democrats at the table. We want your ideas.” And understand the DOGE caucus … we don’t work with Elon Musk. These are ideas that Congress, because we have the power of the purse, that we wanted to put forward to make government more efficient.
But fundamentally, I felt I needed to be in that room because I wanted somebody that was going to speak up for earned benefits like Social Security, Veterans benefits, Medicare. And also, I believe that we need things like investments in IT. You’ve got agencies working off of COBOL systems, which … you know, my laptop isn’t even five years old, so that’s crazy.
Also, my focus is the Department of Defense, which I think there should be massive savings in that agency. The people that are there, most of them, I believe, want to do this work. But you can’t do the work when Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, and his lackeys are literally destroying our government.
Miller: Did you get the sense that your presence on the committee was having an effect? You said you wanted to be a voice in the room. Were people listening to you?
Hoyle: Yes, I was co-chairing the Department of Defense and Veterans Subcommittee, and they absolutely were. I do believe, like Aaron Bean – one of the co-chairs – operating in good faith, he said, “I want to have discussions. I want your ideas here.” And I do believe he was operating in good faith. Were we going to have different ideas? Absolutely. But now we have an administration that isn’t recognizing the checks and balances that we have in our different branches of government. They are really indicating that they’re not going to pay attention to what judges say, or court rulings, or even what Congress says.
When we say we want to spend our money in this way, now the president is saying, well, we might just veto those things or add unbelievable barriers. For instance, for transportation grants, they have just said that the criteria they’re going to put on transportation grants is that localities work with ICE, that there is no DEI – which is a nebulous thing that can mean anything – and that they’re going to prioritize communities that have higher marriage and birth rates. So it’s a very, very strange time.
Miller: It is worth noting, I saw some reporting recently that Oregon is low on the list of birth rates, in terms of states across the country. Red states, in general, have higher birth rates than blue states do. And it almost seems like a mistake to go too deeply into any of these as policy prescriptions right now, but Oregon would suffer if that were to happen. But I want to go back to what you said. If you felt like you were making a difference in this congressional caucus, why not stay on?
Hoyle: I felt like my colleagues were listening to me and I could have made a difference. But what became clear – and I think I’ve used this example before – it’s like trying to replace your roof when somebody is throwing dynamite through your living room window. And the fact of the matter is that Elon Musk, and Trump, by handing over control of our federal government to Elon Musk, is absolutely not paying attention to anything that Congress is doing.
So my colleagues and I can work together and I will continue to work with them, but it is clear that what’s happening outside of Congress is absolutely destructive and makes it impossible for us to do our job.
Miller: Just to be clear, do you support the ostensible purpose of DOGE, to make the federal government less wasteful and more efficient?
Hoyle: Absolutely. I mean, we got sent here to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. When I see that almost half of our Department of Defense budget is spent on contractors who literally have no incentive to give us the best deal … For instance, the Department of Defense has just failed its seventh audit. It can’t even pass an audit. So there are things that we need to do to be more efficient.
I talked to government workers who are working with paper, with old computer systems. We could be more efficient. And yes, there is red tape. There is a reason that people get frustrated with government. I think that the ostensible idea, to make government more responsive and efficient, it is good – and federal workers want that as well. But what they’re doing is using the cover of efficiency to break government, to be able to privatize it and sell off parts of government to their buddies.
Miller: To the extent that there is an argument by the DOGE folks, as opposed to letting their actions speak for themselves, it’s that the federal bureaucracy is so big and so entrenched that the only way to truly rein it in is by drastic means. To nearly dismantle it, and then sift through the broken pieces to see what, if anything, should be rebuilt. That’s the DOGE way.
You mentioned a couple times now, the contracts you see in the Department of Defense. How would you actually change that? How would you find efficiencies and then make real savings?
Hoyle: I think I’ll take a step back for a minute. When they say, “well, we have to break it apart to put it together,” understand what they are doing. And just look at the people that they have going through your private information,
your Social Security numbers – 19- to 25-year-olds, some who have done some very egregious things, are coming in and then there isn’t a thoughtful way to go about things.
The Department of Defense, I do think we should dig in and find out why they have five different systems, computer systems, that are tracking how we’re spending money. I do think we need to look at every one of the contracts. What I don’t think we should do is a wholesale, give everybody in government a letter trying to push them out.
For instance, air traffic controllers, very stressful jobs. We just passed an FAA reauthorization that allowed for the hiring of 2,000 more air traffic controllers. Well, if you say to the air traffic controllers, “here, you can leave now and you’ll get paid through September,” which we don’t even know if that’s an actual deal, then we’re leaving our airports and flights ... we’re putting consumers in danger. When you shut down the agency that protects consumers, that’s brought back over $20 billion for consumers, that doesn’t make sense and isn’t the best thing for Americans.
Then finally, what I will say is, pushing out federal employees … And if we look at Project 2025, the author of which is now heading up the Office of Budget and Management, Russell Vought, the plan is to push out government employees who are loyal to the American people, to the Constitution, and put in employees that are loyal to Donald Trump. That’s not good for Americans.
Miller: Right now, Congress does not seem like a coequal branch of government, or more specifically, like the branch of government that does have power of the purse. Have you had conversations with your Republican colleagues about this?
Hoyle: Yes, I have. And there are some who have just bent the knee and said, “Whatever Donald Trump wants.” I think it was Troy Nehls from Texas, who said, “If he says jump 3 feet high, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” I think there are other of my Republican colleagues who are very, very concerned about where this is going and do want to make sure that we’re a coequal branch of government. But we saw what happened to Republicans who stood up to Donald Trump. You look at Liz Cheney, you look at Adam Kinzinger, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Mitt Romney. It is no longer a party of conservatism and small government. It has become a party with a loyalty test to someone that wants to have a dictatorship as opposed to a representative democracy.
Miller: Every day brings more news about seismic changes to the federal government. Work stoppage orders at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, massive cuts to scientific research from NIH, the call for the end of FEMA as we know it. That’s a partial list just from the last three days. How are you deciding what to focus on?
Hoyle: I’m looking at the things that have the greatest effect. I think we’ve seen USAID, which has significant effects. But also, Trump has paralyzed the National Labor Relations Board by firing one of the members so they don’t have a quorum. This is the board that protects workers. So, what we’re doing, and there’s a number of us that are here, that are trying to look through all of the static to see the things that really matter.
For instance, people who really haven’t passed a background check and are not trustworthy, having access to all Americans Social Security numbers, addresses and other information – that is disturbing. The fact that Elon Musk and J.D. Vance have said just this weekend that they think the courts may be doing unconstitutional things by saying that the administration or the Attorney General can’t do what they want. Those things absolutely should be called out. Again, their plan is to just flood the zone with so much information that we’re paralyzed and that we can’t focus.
But I’ll tell you what, they’re going to need our votes when the budget comes up mid-March. The government will shut down if we don’t pass a budget. I am very, very grateful that we have Hakeem Jeffries as our caucus leader who will be negotiating; and we’ll follow his lead, making sure that we can do whatever we can to protect American people and protect our workers.
Miller: I just want to follow up on something you mentioned there. It has been the judiciary that’s prevented or delayed various executive orders and actions. The most recent example from this weekend was when a federal judge temporarily blocked political appointees and special government employees from accessing sensitive Treasury Department information. That led Vice President Vance to say, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” What happens if the administration simply starts ignoring judicial rulings?
Hoyle: Out of all the things that are happening, this is the one that I find the most disturbing and unsettling. There are checks and balances in the different branches of government. The administration, and Russell Vought and Project 2025, has already given the indication they’re going to follow an imperial presidency, meaning that they can ignore Congress. And they’ve got Republicans that will go along with them.
Now, to ignore the court … everybody should be very disturbed, regardless of what party you are in, that we don’t have those checks and balances. So if that happens, we do have to fight back and use every single tool at our disposal. That really is what I’m focused on.
Miller: What other tools are there?
Hoyle: Well, there is the tool that … we are in Congress. We have the House, we have the Senate. We may be in the minority, but we’re not in the minority by much. And one of the more important things we can do is to speak with the media and talk about the things that are happening, so that we can let the American people know.
Because it is difficult to sift through all the information. But out of everything that has happened this weekend, just in the past week, the one that the vice president and then Elon Musk – who’s been given the keys to our government – have said, “maybe we’re not going to follow what the courts say,” we should all be up in arms about that.
Miller: Val Hoyle, thanks very much.
Hoyle: Thank you so much.
Miller: Val Hoyle is a Democratic Rep. for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District.
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