The man behind the effort to create a DOGE 'safe harbor' for Capitol Hill Democrats
Elon Musk wants more Democrats involved in the nascent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Rep. Aaron Bean is charged with making that happen.
The Florida Republican is a Trump/Musk ally and co-founder of the House’s DOGE caucus, which gathered for its first meeting last week to begin wooing curious Democrats as Congress wrapped up its business for the year.
"They're still kind of fearful, they're feeling out DOGE," Bean said of the other side of the aisle in a recent interview.
"One of my objectives was to create a safe harbor where everybody feels welcome," he added in the conversation, where he also laid out what are high bipartisan hopes for 2025.
The plans for his caucus include regular meetings (the next one is scheduled for January), an early focus on Democratic-friendly terrain like trimming the Pentagon's budget, and even hopes for bipartisan working groups.
"It will take both parties," Bean said.
But whether extended cooperation is indeed in the cards as Trump 2.0 takes hold in 2025 remains to be seen.
And some hurdles that Bean could encounter may be laid out by Musk himself as well as by more hardline GOP members also at the forefront of Congress's DOGE push, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Musk turned up the temperature just last week when he all but single-handedly killed a bipartisan bill to avert a shutdown, causing many provisions to be scuttled and angering many Democrats.
But for the moment, Bean can boast that three Democrats took part in last week's meeting alongside more than 70 Republicans.
Two Democrats are officially part of his caucus. Behind the scenes, Bean said he is talking to "many others."
The search for 'low-hanging fruit'
Bean rose up through Florida politics and joined the US House of Representatives in 2023, representing the Jacksonville area.
In his first term he operated as a Trump ally but one less focused on more heated partisan topics. He spent time in his first term on issues like small businesses, education, and healthcare in line with his background in Florida.
He then jumped to get involved with DOGE after Trump's win and the announcement of the extra-governmental effort led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Bean had soon launched the House DOGE caucus with Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. The effort is bicameral with a parallel effort in the Senate being led by Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.
Bean and his fellow DOGE leaders have been trying to strike early bipartisan notes with a friendly logo (a a Shiba Inu dog, naturally) and even a tip line to report government waste.
The hope from the group is to put up early wins on what its leaders like to call "low-hanging fruit" — spending that everyone can agree should be cut.
Last week's caucus meeting included a presentation from Rep. Blake Moore, a Utah Republican who became a third caucus co-chair earlier this month.
He came to Congress after a career — perhaps apt for his current task — in both diplomacy and management consulting.
"My background makes me well suited to identify areas of waste, fraud, & abuse in our federal government," he posted recently.
Can there be any sustained bipartisanship in 2025?
The Pentagon's massive budget could be a key area for possible bipartisan agreement and came up at last week's meeting, Bean said.
That's an issue that has already led to DOGE curiosity from prominent progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Ro Khanna of California.
The question, of course, hanging over the effort is whether any sort of sustained bipartisanship will be possible in a year ahead that could also include new heights of partisan bickering.
Lawmakers are already aiming to pass perhaps two bills in 2025 using the reconciliation process. That method of enacting laws is likely to inflame partisan tensions as it allows the Senate to pass the bill with 51 votes — and exclude the minority party altogether.
Musk himself may also not be helping efforts after he jumped in last week to kill a bipartisan effort at averting a shutdown .
His involvement appears to have put at least one DOGE dalliance on ice.
Sen. Sanders — the Vermont independent and two-time presidential candidate — made waves just a few weeks back when he posted "Elon Musk is right" in reference to trimming military spending.
But the tone has changed after Musk's involvement last week, with Sanders repeatedly slamming the billionaire's actions and calling them "oligarchy at work."
Other DOGE efforts in Congress could also hinder any nascent bipartisan flowering.
Bean's co-founder of the DOGE caucus is Rep. Sessions of Texas. Sessions also serves on the House Oversight Committee, which has become the scene of tense partisan clashes in recent years and will have a new DOGE-focused subcommittee led by one of Trump's staunchest and most polarizing Capitol Hill allies: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
House Speaker Mike Johnson focused on that subcommittee work in his recent comments on DOGE, saying, "The efforts here, both with our subcommittees that are being created here and with the DOGE effort itself will be to explore [waste], to investigate it and lay it bare for the American people to see."
Bean flatly rejects the idea that he and Greene are going to be working at cross purposes in the months ahead as he tries to woo Democrats, noting that she also presented her plans at last week's caucus meeting and the two have been meeting regularly.
He said that investigative efforts will complement his focus on finding bipartisan legislation, "so it’s going to be a two-way street."
His case is essentially that there is such a wide array of wasteful areas of the government to look into that there will be something for everyone.
"It's going to be dozens of bills," he said.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Every Friday, Yahoo Finance's Rachelle Akuffo , Rick Newman , and Ben Werschkul bring you a unique look at how U.S. policy and government affects your bottom line on Capitol Gains. Watch or listen to Capitol Gains on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
