Fresh off Trump firings, Library of Congress stares down a proposed budget cut

WASHINGTON — After a stretch of uncertainty in May in which its leader and another director were removed by President Donald Trump, the Library of Congress is again under fire, though this time from congressional appropriators looking to take a chunk from the institution’s budget.

A spending proposal from House Republicans would lop off roughly 10% of funding for the nation’s library in the coming fiscal year, threatening staff and concerning the library’s defenders who see it as the latest Trump attack on cultural institutions.

“We’re going to strenuously object to any cuts in the Library of Congress or the legislative branch,” Rep. Joseph D. Morelle, D-N.Y., a member of the House Appropriations Committee and ranking member of the House Administration Committee, said Tuesday. “I think there should be more resources devoted to the Article 1 branch of the Constitution.”

The reduction is not final. The spending bill, which also includes a nearly 50% cut to the Government Accountability Office, advanced out of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee on Monday and will be taken up by the full committee Thursday.

According to a Republican summary of the proposal, the Library of Congress would receive $767.6 million in funding in fiscal 2026, $84.5 million below current levels of funding. The library would receive $501.9 million toward salaries and expenses, $90.5 million below fiscal 2025 funding, while the U.S. Copyright Office, housed within the library, would be cut by just under $1 million, down to $56.6 million for the coming fiscal year. The Congressional Research Service and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled would both get modest bumps.

When asked about the library cut on Wednesday, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., stressed it’s still early in the process.

“We’re not the only people that use the Library of Congress. The Senate has something to say too,” Cole said. “I don’t think anything that comes out in an initial proposal, whether it’s from the administration or from us, is going to necessarily be where a bill ends up.”

Focus on the library — which is the main research arm of Congress and home to a vast collection of books and other cultural artifacts — has intensified since Trump unexpectedly fired longtime Librarian Carla Hayden on May 8. Days later, he removed Shira Perlmutter, who led the copyright office, in a similarly abrupt fashion.

By the following Monday, representatives from the Department of Justice were at the library trying to insert themselves in leadership roles on order from the president. Library staff rebuffed them and blocked, at least for the moment, what appeared to be a hostile takeover by the executive branch of a legislative branch entity.

“What did the Library of Congress do to deserve a 10 percent cut? They disallowed DOJ to infiltrate and dismantle a legislative branch agency,” House Legislative Branch Appropriations ranking member Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said at the subcommittee markup Monday.

‘Uneasy limbo’

What’s followed in the last nearly two months since Hayden’s firing has been relative peace. Hayden’s deputy, Robert Newlen, has maintained his role as acting head of the library. Perlmutter is challenging her firing in court, as the Trump administration argues the library is “part of the executive branch and subject to presidential control.”

But other than Democrats asserting that the president should not have an active role in library business, Congress has largely been silent in the interim.

“You kind of have this uneasy limbo,” said a source familiar with the mood inside the library, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. “We don’t know how this ends. … But no Department of Justice officials have come back. We hear from members and staff that there are discussions going on between Congress and the White House.”

“We have no idea what the details of those discussions are,” the person continued. “But, you know, it’s been quiet.”

The president has statutory authority to appoint the librarian of Congress with Senate approval, but there’s little historical precedent for the White House to unilaterally remove a sitting librarian.

Democrats in the immediate aftermath of Hayden’s firing said they would introduce legislation to change the appointment process for the librarian, drawing on a new process developed for the hiring and firing of the Architect of the Capitol that advanced with bipartisan support and was signed into law in 2023. That law, developed in the wake of a scandal involving former AOC J. Brett Blanton, gives a congressional commission the power to decide who leads the agency, which is responsible for the Capitol buildings and grounds.

“I’ve spoken to the speaker about this — the president ought not to be involved with the Library of Congress. It is the Library of Congress, not of the executive. They should neither appoint nor remove the librarian,” Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said at Monday’s subcommittee markup.

But it’s not clear whether congressional Republicans, or the White House, are bought into a change in the process.

“I’ve been open to that for a long time, and in particular building on some of the success we had with the work we did with the Architect of the Capitol,” House Administration Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said this week.

Immediately after the firings of Hayden and Perlmutter, Morelle announced plans to introduce legislation that would empower Congress in the appointment of the head librarian, as well as other directors at the Government Publishing Office and the Government Accountability Office. But Morelle, as of this week, still hadn’t introduced the bill.

“We’re continuing to work through and talk to folks here,” Morelle said.

Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former CRS staffer, said one possible legislative solution would be to move the copyright office — which has some executive function — to the Commerce Department and remove the president from the appointment process for the Library of Congress.

But those kinds of changes would take time to develop, Kosar predicted. And he’s not surprised Republicans haven’t been chatty about them.

“It’s perfectly rational for it to go quiet,” Kosar said. “We have a GOP majority in both chambers. They don’t want to have a public fight with the president over who controls the Library of Congress and copyright office and Congressional Research Service.”

‘What’s going to happen with the budget’

Hayden, before she was fired, this spring presented a $946.2 million budget request to both the Senate and House Legislative Branch Appropriations subcommittees. The request would have been a 5.4% increase, and included $2.5 million to transfer the library’s web development activities to the cloud; $5.4 million to replace and upgrade an out-of-date digital preservation system; and $30.9 million to cover mandatory pay and price-level increases, according to Hayden’s testimony.

A Library of Congress spokesperson declined to comment on the cuts proposed by Republicans. But there’s some worry within the institution about what it could mean for staff and programming.

“I think it’s more than just the dismissal. It’s the uncertainty of what’s going to happen with the budget,” said a second library employee, who was also granted anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to the press.

She described a general anxiety, not just about the library, but about other agencies within the legislative branch like the GAO, which in May reported receiving and refusing overtures from the Department of Government Efficiency.

But day to day, as they await a resolution, the work continues almost as normal, she said.

“It’s unsettling not having a leader and not knowing what’s going to happen,” the staffer said. “But frankly, the rank and file keep the organization going.”