Betsy DeVos In Danger Of Becoming First Cabinet Nominee In 28 Years To Be Rejected
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 7, 2017
At noon on Tuesday, the Senate is expected to vote whether to confirm Trump’s controversial nominee for education secretary, billionaire Betsy DeVos, following an unusually fiery debate including an all-night Senate session, that has left her at risk of becoming the first cabinet nominee in 28 years to be rejected. Although Senate Republicans and the White House have said they are confident they have the votes to confirm Mrs. DeVos as the nation’s top education official, the vote may be on the verge of failing, and the GOP might need to take the rare step of turning to Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tiebreaking vote as the WSJ reports.
The troubling math: cabinet picks need a simple majority to be confirmed. Republicans hold 52 of the Senate’s 100 seats, but two—Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine—say they will vote no. DeVos would win confirmation if all other Republicans and Mike Pence vote yes.
While it is unusual for a presidential-cabinet pick, let alone an education-secretary nominee, to face the kind of opposition Ms. DeVos has faced, her nomination has become a proxy for a broader debate over how best to improve public schools across the U.S. Over the past month, teachers unions and Senate Democrats have voiced their opposition to DeVos’s decades of leadership in the “school choice” movement, which advocates charter schools and voucher-funded private schools as alternatives to traditional public schools. Charter schools are publicly funded but mostly privately run, and vouchers provide public dollars for students to attend private schools.
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