President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, won Senate confirmation Tuesday afternoon, but just barely. She lost two of the Republican majority’s 52 votes, with Senate education committee members Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska having announced they would defect last week. Vice President Mike Pence, thus, cast the 51st “yea” to break a 50-50 tie and seal her confirmation—an inevitable outcome, which Senate Democrats had nonetheless stayed up all night debating.
DeVos advocates for advancements in school choice, viz. charter schools and voucher programs, which teachers’ unions—and the lawmakers, mainly Democrats, whom they support—ardently oppose. Threats her agenda purportedly poses to public schools galvanized a campaign against her and a barrage of constituent phone calls to Senate offices. A spokesman for Friends of Betsy DeVos called the union efforts to block her appointment “a historic disinformation campaign.”
Democratic lawmakers fought DeVos in their own way, seeming to confirm Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s characterizatio
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, for instance, told reporters in the halls near his Senate office that he doesn’t “even want to be consenting to [Trump’s] government in any way right now,” seeming to echo McConnell.
“And that’s why, with a different president, with a different leader, some of the people that I voted against I may have voted for.”
“I’m in a posture of fighting him, resisting him, and trying to stop him from hurting people,” said Booker, a lawmaker some have likened to a young Barack Obama and teased for a 2020 presidential run.
Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania likewise acknowledged the exceptional fervor opposing what might otherwise have been a less controversial nomination: “The fact that the vice president had to break this tie is significant. That probably wouldn’t have been necessary a couple weeks ago.” He reported that his office received 100,000 “contacts”—calls and emails—from constituents fired up against the confirmation of a wealthy school choice advocate for education secretary. “The people felt this very personal,” Casey said, adding that the extended debate Democrats initiated also serves to engage voters.
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, former vice presidential candidate, told TWS he’s not among the camp that opposes everything—resistance for resistance’ sake is not his style. Rather, “I vote them on the merits.” And as far as feeding constituents’ hunger for obstruction goes, “I have people who are all over the map.”
He would not, however, reveal Democrats’ strategic plan to take on the Trump administration, a secret strategy Minnesota senator Al Franken earlier tied to Democrats’ efforts against DeVos. “Talk to leadership about that. They’ll tell you about the plan.”
Rather than reveal the secret plan, the number-two Democrat in the Senate leadership, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, took a similar tack against universal opposition to the Trump administration.
Yes, voters call for obstruction, and “I hear it constantly,” Durbin assured reporters. DeVos’s confirmation may have been worth the people’s, and the party’s, fuss—but they can’t all incur breathless debate, no matter how much the constituents want it. “Our base is very intense, very emotional, very committed.”
“I love ’em, but sometimes I have to tell ’em please take a deep breath. This is marathon not a sprint, and we need to make sure that we not only oppose when we have to, [but also] support when we must and have a clear message about what we stand for.”
How a clear message from Democrats comports with this secret strategy is anyone’s guess.
For now, it’s Majority Leader McConnell whose strategy stands out: Legitimate doubts that DeVos might not pass confirmation were quickly quashed after moderates Collins and Murkowski announced their “nay” votes—the remaining endorsements DeVos would need poured in, and the drama surrounding her confirmation subsided.
Indeed, Republican majority whip John Cornyn heralded her confirmation on Tuesday as a departure from the status quo (something we’re seeing a lot of these days). And McConnell praised her commitment to every child’s success—perhaps the most important prerequisite for an education secretary after all.
