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Trump Cabinet Picks Advance as Republicans Outmuscle Democrats 2 G.O.P. Senators to Vote Against Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans used the muscle of their majority on Wednesday to push some of President Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominees forward, using arcane procedural maneuvers and party-line votes to overcome what they called stall tactics by Democrats. WASHINGTON — Two Republican senators on Wednesday said they would vote against President Trump’s nominee for education secretary, delivering a blow to the White House and raising the possibility that Vice President Mike Pence would have to break a tie to win her confirmation.
The moves show the fierceness of the resistance to Mr. Trump among Democrats in Congress — but also the difficulty they will face going forward in trying to slow the Republican legislative agenda. The nominee, Betsy DeVos, a billionaire with a complex web of financial investments, had already faced fierce opposition from Democrats and labor unions because of her political contributions to Republicans and her involvement in pushing alternatives to public education. But her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, during which she flubbed answers on education policy, also brought concerns from Republicans.
For the second time this week, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted a hearing on the nominations of Representative Tom Price and Steven T. Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s picks to lead Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said Ms. DeVos had failed to demonstrate that she understood what public schools needed to succeed. “I have serious concerns about a nominee to be secretary of education who has been so involved in one side of the equation, so immersed in the push for vouchers, that she may be unaware of what actually is successful within the public schools, and also what is broken and how to fix them,” Ms. Murkowski said.
But Republicans on the committee broke with the practice that a member of the minority party be present and held a vote Wednesday without their Democratic colleagues. They voted unanimously to move the nominations forward. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she respected Ms. DeVos’s clear devotion to students and “valuable work” in education. But she said she remained troubled by Ms. DeVos’s focus on alternatives to public education, as well as what Ms. Collins called a “lack of familiarity” with federal laws protecting children with special needs and disabilities.
“At every turn, my colleagues’ arguments change, but their answer is always the same: delay,” Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, chairman of the Finance Committee, said before the vote. “Long story short, we took some unprecedented actions today due to the unprecedented obstruction on the part of our colleagues.” “Her concentration on charter schools and vouchers, however, raises the question about whether or not she fully appreciates that the secretary of education’s primary focus must be on helping states and communities, parents, teachers, school board administrators, school board members and administrators strengthen our public schools,” Ms. Collins said. “I will not, I cannot, vote to confirm her as our nation’s next secretary of education.”
Democrats on the committee say new information that emerged over the weekend suggests that Mr. Price and Mr. Mnuchin may not have been truthful in their confirmation hearing testimony, and they say need more questions answered. Now that the Republicans have voted without them, they are left with few options. Senators and education advocates from both sides of the aisle were taken aback by Ms. DeVos’s comments at her Jan. 17 confirmation hearing about core responsibilities of the Department of Education. One exchange with Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, was later promoted heavily on social media by the Democratic Party and activist groups, including national education unions.
“What we’re going to do, and it may sound like a quaint idea, is to follow up,” Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said. “We’re going to keep pushing to get the facts.” In it, Mr. Kaine asked Ms. DeVos whether all schools that receive public money should have to follow the requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA. Ms. DeVos responded, “I think that’s a matter that’s best left to the states.”
Republicans also took a step toward the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions, Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general. A divided Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination on Wednesday, despite fierce pushback from Democrats prompted by the president’s dramatic firing of the Justice Department’s acting chief in a clash over the administration’s refugee policy. In fact, under IDEA, a landmark 1975 civil rights law, states and school districts are required to provide special education services to children with disabilities. During the hearing, Ms. Collins said she had “heard repeatedly” from school officials that the most important action the federal government could take on education would be “to fulfill the promise” of IDEA by providing more funding for those students.
The committee approved Mr. Sessions on a straight party-line vote, with 11 Republicans supporting their former colleague from Alabama and nine Democrats opposing him. The Republican-controlled Senate now appears ready to approve his nomination next week, which would give the Justice Department and its 113,000 employees a full-time leader after a tumultuous few days that called its independence into question. Ms. DeVos responded to Ms. Collins that she would look at funding levels, but said, “Maybe the money should follow individual students instead of going directly to the states.”
The judiciary committee vote came two days after Mr. Trump ousted the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, over her refusal to defend the president’s order on refugees against legal challenges. Ms. Yates said the order’s legality was unclear; the White House accused her of having “betrayed” her department. The pushback against Ms. DeVos played out in thousands of emails and phone calls urging senators to vote against her. Protesters showed up at her confirmation hearing, outside senators’ offices and in Michigan, where Ms. DeVos has been involved in pushing education policies.
Democrats zeroed in on the firing and said that Mr. Sessions, an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s long-shot campaign who went on to become an influential adviser, would not have the independence to challenge the White House on questions of the law and policy. At his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Sessions pledged repeatedly that he would be able to “say no” to Mr. Trump if needed and would not be “a mere rubber stamp” on issues like immigration and national security. Her nomination now hangs precariously on whether Republicans will rally the support of a few undeclared colleagues, or woo Democratic dissenters. Her chances got a boost on Wednesday with the support of two Republicans who were originally believed to oppose her, Senators Dean Heller of Nevada and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania.
Despite the progress with the Sessions nomination, delays remain on other fronts. Republicans are still grappling with Democrats over Scott Pruitt, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and Representative Mick Mulvaney, his pick for White House budget director. If the Senate’s Democrats and independents vote together, just one more Republican defection would be fatal to Ms. DeVos’s prospects. If all other senators vote along party lines, Mr. Pence could break a 50-50 tie in his capacity as president of the Senate. But three Republican votes opposing her confirmation would result in an outright rejection of her nomination.
On Wednesday, Democrats boycotted Mr. Pruitt’s scheduled confirmation vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, saying he had failed to adequately answer their questions and address concerns about how he would run the agency charged with protecting the nation’s air, water and health. Ms. DeVos’s opponents said on Wednesday that they would target specific Republicans, including Mr. Heller and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.
Senator John Barasso of Wyoming, the Republican chairman of the committee, dismissed the boycott as a stunt. Looking at the Democrats’ empty seats, he said that it was “a disappointing turn of events,” and that his colleagues were engaging in “political theater.” If enough senators oppose Ms. DeVos, it would be just the second time in history that the Senate rejected a nominee for a first-term president assembling his cabinet, according to the Senate Historical Office.
“I hope this is not the new normal,” he said. “We cannot afford for the E.P.A. to go without an administrator for the foreseeable future.” After Ms. Collins’s and Ms. Murkowski’s announcements, the Senate opened consideration of Ms. DeVos’s nomination Wednesday, scheduling the first procedural hurdle to her confirmation for Friday. But amid strong Democratic opposition, it looks unlikely that the Senate’s final vote will come until early next week.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget will also be without a leader for a while longer as Democrats on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee managed to slow down a vote on Mr. Mulvaney over a delay in receiving his F.B.I. background check. The president of the National Education Association, Lily Eskelsen García, said educators, parents and students were “grateful” for the opposition by Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski. “The nation is speaking out; senators need to listen,” Ms. Eskelsen García said.
Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said that while the full report was available on Tuesday, she had not had an opportunity to read it before the Wednesday hearing. She insisted that the committee convene again for a vote. Dan Cantor, national director of the Working Families Party, which has been organizing protests outside senators’ offices, said his group would be holding regular protests at Mr. Heller’s office. Opponents of Ms. DeVos said they would target other Republicans, including Mr. Portman.
While Republicans have used similar delay tactics when they were not in power, many are arguing that Democrats should move on and let Mr. Trump assemble his government. “The DeVos family has given millions to elect Republicans, but that shouldn’t buy her a cabinet post,” Mr. Cantor said. “The first step was unity from the Senate Democrats. Now we’re going to keep up that pressure on Senate Republicans.”
“I understand they’re upset, I understand they are in a state of shock,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, said of his Democratic colleagues. “To do some of this sort of childish stuff is going to make their comeback harder. If they can have a comeback.” Democrats, teachers unions and liberal protesters have voiced concern about the DeVos family’s contributions to groups that support so-called conversion therapy for gay people; her more than $200 million in donations to Republicans and their causes; and her past statements that government “sucks” and that public schools are a “dead end.” Opponents have also focused on the poor performance of charter schools in Detroit, which Ms. DeVos has bankrolled even as she resisted legislation that would have blocked chronically failing charter schools from expanding.
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, swiftly brushed off the defections as inconsequential, saying he had “zero” concern about Ms. DeVos’s confirmation by the Senate.
Ms. DeVos’s opponents were undeterred.
“The more people get to know how ill equipped Betsy DeVos is to strengthen public schools, how disconnected she is from public schools, and how her record has been focused on pursuing for-profit charters and vouchers, and not children, the more the people who believe in the importance of public education are joining to oppose her,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Meanwhile, in a display of fierce resistance against Mr. Trump that played out in a proxy battle against his nominees, Senate Democrats again boycotted committee votes on the nominations of Representative Tom Price and Steven T. Mnuchin, the president’s picks to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury, respectively. Democrats argued that new information had emerged to suggest that the two nominees had not been truthful in their confirmation testimony.
Determined not to be thwarted, the committee’s Republicans broke with the longstanding practice that at least one member of the minority party be present and held the votes anyway, unanimously agreeing to send the nominations to the Senate floor.
At the same time, a divided Senate Judiciary Committee green-lighted Senator Jeff Sessions’s nomination as attorney general along a straight party-line vote, sending it to the full Senate for a final vote. Democrats also boycotted a planned committee vote Wednesday on Scott Pruitt, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and continued to slow down consideration of Representative Mick Mulvaney, his pick for White House budget director.