‘Only takes 3’: Dems push personal data protection to turn GOP against Elon Musk’s DOGE

House Democrats have a new coordinated pressure campaign aimed at restricting Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), based on leveraging the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

Recent days have seen Democratic lawmakers take to both traditional and social media to publicly urge “just three House Republicans” to cross the aisle and vote for a bill designed to stop Musk from accessing U.S. citizens’ records in the Department of Treasury. 

“I’m supporting the Taxpayer Data Protection Act because it will protect Americans’ private data from Elon Musk and his reckless DOGE employees,” Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., wrote on X. “Republican leadership has to let us vote. If they don’t, it only takes three lone Republicans to join us and make it happen.”

Generally, legislation needs to have the blessing of majority party leaders to get a House-wide vote. 

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is one of several Democrats saying it only takes three House Republicans to oppose Elon Musk. (Getty Images)

But Lee’s comments appear to signal that House Democrats are prepared to use a discharge petition to end-run GOP leaders’ likely opposition. It’s a mechanism to force legislation up for a House-wide vote, provided the petition gets signatures from a majority of House lawmakers.

Meanwhile, in an MSNBC interview earlier this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., suggested Democrats’ highlighting of Republicans’ thin majority could be a running theme in the 119th Congress.

“What we’ve been saying to our Republican colleagues is that on any issue that the American people are concerned about, it only takes three Republicans to break with the other side of the aisle, join the 215 Democrats, and we can stop them in their tracks. It only takes three,” Jeffries said.

“Meanwhile, they’re in the witness protection program as it relates to the things that are taking place – don’t want to take a stand, don’t want to offend Elon Musk, don’t want to offend Donald Trump, but they’re really offending the people that they were elected to represent.”

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Democrats are opposed to Musk and President Trump’s DOGE efforts. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

He stopped short of endorsing any specific legislation, however. Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ office to ask if he would be supportive of a discharge petition.

Other Democrats were more targeted in their approach, like progressive Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who wrote on X, “It’s not rocket science: an unelected billionaire should NOT have access to your personal financial info!”

“If just three House Republicans join us, we can pass a bill that stops Musk from accessing your private info. But the [House GOP] is siding with their favorite billionaire donor over everyday Americans,” Pocan wrote on Tuesday.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., said on the site, “This isn’t complicated: allowing access to these sensitive IRS records by an unelected businessman is dangerous. We can protect your privacy if just three House Republicans join us to pass legislation that stops accessing your private information.”

It will likely be an ongoing theme for the next two years as Republicans navigate a majority of less than a handful of House seats.

Top progressive Rep. Mark Pocan is among those pressuring the GOP. (Reuters/Christopher Aluka Berry)

The number three also coincides with how many House Republicans won districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris prevailed over Trump in last year. 

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Those Republicans – Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Don Bacon, R-Neb. – are likely to be main targets for Democrats.

The vast majority of House Republicans have been supportive of Musk’s DOGE efforts, however, even as Democrats sound alarm bells about the billionaire’s lack of government experience and accuse him of possible conflicts of interest.

Republicans have argued that the $36 trillion national debt amounted to a fiscal crisis that called for extraordinary measures.