WASHINGTON — Your U.S. senator’s staff hasn’t stopped picking up the phone. But Senate phone lines are jammed with constituents urging their representatives to vote yes or no on President Donald Trump appointees.
Maybe this will make a difference: Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, has made up his mind. He said Thursday he will vote to confirm Betsy DeVos, Trump’s controversial nominee for education secretary.
“I support Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education because during the confirmation process she committed to strongly support public education and because of her support for local control, instead of having the federal government dictate education policy at the state and local level,” Portman said in a statement.
“I look forward to working with her to improve our K-12 public education system, make college more affordable, stand up for children with disabilities, and close the skills gap by promoting Career and Technical Education (CTE) to give young people more opportunities to succeed.”
His Democratic Senate colleague from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, disagrees. Brown says so many things about DeVos — from her unyielding support for charter schools that get taxpayer money without full accountability, to a $5.3 million Ohio fine one of her organizations has never paid – make her unqualified to be the nation’s education leader. Senate Republicans leaders need to slow down so all the concerns and questions can be heard and addressed, Brown says.
“When thousands of parents, students and teachers are jamming the phone lines in opposition to Betsy DeVos, the answer isn’t to cram her through the Senate, it’s to slow down and listen to the people we work for,” Brown said in a statement today.
Betsy DeVos says she doesn’t owe $5.3 million
The Senate is expected to vote Friday or Saturday, and the Republican majority has no votes to spare.
Republicans hold 52 of the 100-member seat and DeVos can be confirmed with a bare majority, but Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska say they will vote no. If the vote is 50-50, Vice President Mike Pence can sit in as the presiding officer and break the tie.
Groups on both sides of the issue have urged followers to call senators. DeVos is just one of Trump’s picks subject to heavy lobbying; his nominees to head the EPA (Scott Pruitt), the Treasury Department (Steve Mnuchin) and the Department of Health and Human Services (Tom Price) are also under fire. Democrats accuse Pruitt of being too friendly toward polluters and say Mnuchin and Price appear to have had personal or business financial dealings that raise questions.
Democrats boycotted oversight-committee meetings on the nominees this week, including one this morning to consider Pruitt.
Although that left the meetings without quorums, which are normally necessary for a vote, Republicans then used parliamentary procedures to get committee votes anyway, and the Republicans – without any Democrats present – prevailed.
Republicans bypass Democrats who won’t go into meetings
Democrats said Republicans were unfair. Republicans said Democrats were childish.
With the committee votes, Pruitt, Mnuchin and Price are now a step closer to full Senate votes, the kind that DeVos now faces.
If you still want to contact your senators, you can keep calling – here are numbers for Portman, and Brown. But we’ll make a recommendation. Use their online constituent forms.
For Portman: https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form
For Brown: https://www.brown.senate.gov/contact/email
For the record, both senators say they welcome hearing from constituents, no matter their political views.
“Rob appreciates the fact that Ohioans regularly reach out to his office to voice their opinions on a variety of issues,” said his spokeswoman, Emily Benavides. “We value and welcome their input. We have received a higher than normal amount of calls but that’s to be expected when the Senate is considering a new administration’s Cabinet nominees.”
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