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Republican allies of the Trump administration tell a different story. In some cases, they got DOGE to drop plans to close federal facilities in their districts. In others, they secured assurances that only rarely used, in-person hearing offices will close, rather than the field offices their constituents frequently visit to apply for federal benefits like Social Security and Medicare.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) quickly got DOGE to back off a plan to close a Social Security office — as well as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration facility and an Indian Health Service office — in his district.
“We found it pretty simple,” Cole told reporters. “Honestly, it was mostly at the staff level.”
But one consistent theme is that Musk’s effort to realign the offices has taken a chaotic and uneven approach that has left Capitol Hill scrambling for accurate information and rushing to respond. The confusion has been exacerbated by conflicting planning documents published by DOGE and the Social Security Administration.
SSA is expected to cut at least 7,000 workers — about 12% of its workforce — and has already endured website crashes as users are pushed online, threatening perhaps the most politically sensitive government benefit program. But the agency has not been clear about how those reductions will affect offices.
As of mid-March, DOGE’s website listed 47 Social Security Administration offices in a broader list proposing to cancel federal real estate leases. By early April, the slightly reformatted site only listed 22 Social Security Administration offices. In late March, the Social Security Administration published a list of 64 facilities slated for closure, mostly consisting of in-person hearing rooms that aren’t often used anymore. The agency has since removed that list from the webpage where it was originally published.
After removing the office-closure document from the webpage, Social Security Administration officials didn’t respond to questions about office-closure plans or the process of closing the Seattle office.
A Partisan Tenor
Levin and other congressional Democrats say there’s a partisan edge to the cost-cutting proposals.
DOGE officials have kept Democrats in the dark about their plans, while Republican colleagues have secured promises to protect facilities in their districts, lawmakers say.
“It’s anybody’s guess what their plan is,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (R-Ga.) said of the DOGE proposal.
Warnock learned the group called for closing five Social Security Administration offices in Georgia when he saw it listed on the DOGE website. When lawmakers “began to make noise, they took it down,” Warnock said in an interview. “Your guess is as good as mine, which is bad for the constituents in Georgia.”
Levin also said he asked agency officials for information and got a “non-answer,” though he managed to confirm the office would close in June.
The lack of communication marks “a vastly different tenor” from his previous interactions with President Donald Trump’s administration during his first term, Levin said in an interview.
“People would answer calls and tell us what was happening.” he said. “All we know is what we see on the DOGE website.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, hasn’t been able to stop a broad push to close down regional administrative offices, including one in Seattle. That office, which has 197 employees, according to the agency’s office-closure document, has already effectively shut down, said John Pfannenstein, an agency employee who serves as president of the local union branch of the American Federation Of Government Employees. “A handful” of workers remain in the office, in Seattle’s Columbia Center building, but they face “a hard eviction” by April 25, Pfannenstein said.
“In pushing out thousands of Social Security employees and shuttering offices—including the Seattle regional office—Donald Trump and Elon Musk are guaranteeing that the Social Security Administration will break down, jeopardizing benefits for people in Washington state and all across the country,” Murray said in a statement.
Closing ‘Part-Time Space’
Republicans says they have a better understanding of the moves, but several still needed to appeal to the administration for changes or details.
Some GOP members say they’ve confirmed officials only plan to downsize physical hearing spaces, though some acknowledged there hasn’t been much communication from DOGE. The Social Security Administration also published a March 27 statement on its website saying it didn’t plan to permanently close any field offices, though it didn’t rule out the closure of administrative or hearing offices.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said he agreed with the proposal to close a hearing space in Anniston, Ala., as long as there’s still a field office in the same town.
“I do want to know that they’re looking at doing another lease for a smaller place in that town, because I represent a poor rural district,” Rogers said in an interview. “I don’t want people having to travel long distances.”
The agency has stopped holding many in-person hearings and has instead relied on Zoom in recent years, Rogers said.
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said he’s not concerned about DOGE listing an office in Abilene, Texas.
“It was space that was unutilized,” Arrington said.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said he heard the DOGE proposal to end a lease in Nacogdoches, Texas, “was a mobile unit” and “part-time space.” The agency has moved its normal field office to nearby Lufkin, Texas, Sessions’s staff said.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) is the GOP exception. He unsuccessfully urged the Trump administration to keep a hearing office in White Plains, N.Y. open.
Lawler issued a statement calling the decision to close the office “a slap in the face to thousands of my constituents who rely on these services.”
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