Betsy DeVos, President-elect Trump’s selection to lead the Education Department, gave almost $90,000 combined over the last five years to Republican senators who will vote on her nomination.
According to paperwork she filed with the Senate committee that will hold a hearing on her nomination Wednesday, DeVos gave $88,000 combined to 18 GOP senators, five of whom sit on the committee.
Notably, DeVos gave $7,400 to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. in 2014 and 2015. She gave $2,600 to now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during his 2014 re-election campaign. She also gave $7,800 to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., in 2014. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., received $8,100 from DeVos, though some of that was in 2015 to his presidential campaign.
See below for a full listing of the 18 senators to whom DeVos donated.
In addition to individual candidates, DeVos gave $114,200 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $279,800 to the Republican National Committee in the last five years.
DeVos’ paperwork was obtained by Politico’s Caitlin Emma.
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While the donations might look like a Cabinet nominee looking to buy favor with senators who control her fate, that’s not likely the case.
Given her conservative beliefs, all 18 of the senators likely would have voted in favor of DeVos even if she hadn’t donated to them. The 18 senators aren’t exactly moderates, they’re mainstream conservatives. There’s no question they would support anyone who, like DeVos, supports school choice, wants to send educational power back to the states and opposes Common Core.
If DeVos really wanted to use campaign donations to get key senators to support her nomination, she would have given to more moderate Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, or certain Democrats who support school choice, such as Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
DeVos probably never dreamed of becoming secretary of education until Trump shocked everyone on Election Day, let alone when she made campaign donations in 2014 and earlier. In August, a former Education Department official named three people Trump might look at if he won. The list did not include DeVos. In May, a survey of education policy insiders suggested eight possibilities for Trump’s secretary of education. The list included Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and even Omarosa or Ted Nugent. No one mentioned DeVos.
It wasn’t as if DeVos was waiting in the wings for all of 2016, hoping Trump would win and that her donations targeted to key senators would swing the confirmation vote in her favor.
Furthermore, those donations are just a drop in the bucket of DeVos’ political involvement. In the 23-page questionnaire she returned to the committee, her political donations from the past five years take up 10 pages. Her donations went to political action committees, policy-oriented non-profits, campaigns for school board, mayor, justice, sheriff, state house, state senate, Congress and more.
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DeVos has long been politically active, dating all the way back to 1980 when she first served as a delegate to the Michigan Republican State Convention. She was even chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 1996-2000 and again from 2003-2005.
Just as the Senate donations were a small portion of her political activity, the amounts senators received were a small portion of their campaign funds. In 2014, Cassidy raised $15.5 million for his campaign. Of every dollar Cassidy raised, only one in every $2,000 was from DeVos.
DeVos’ giving isn’t exactly unprecedented. Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department, routinely donated to Democratic politicians, including President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Cabinet nominees donating to politicians isn’t a Republican phenomenon: Obama’s current secretary of commerce, Penny Pritzker, raised at least $500,000 for Obama in 2012 and between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama in 2008. Pritzker and her husband gave heavily, donating almost $1,000,000 to 119 different federal candidates. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, those donations were largely to Democrats but also to a few Republicans.
Yes, donating to 18 senators who are about to vote on her nomination might look bad for DeVos. But there’s no evidence to suggest impropriety. All 100 senators should judge DeVos on her past accomplishments in the private sector and her beliefs and ideas about education reform.
For the full list of DeVos’ political contributions in the last five years, and other disclosures from her paperwork, see below.
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
