STUPID Betsy Devos CONFIRMED As Next Education Secretary - Pence And Betsy Are Idiots (Grizzly Bear)

STUPID Betsy Devos CONFIRMED As Next Education Secretary - Pence And Betsy Are Idiots (Grizzly Bear)

Betsy DeVos, a wealthy Republican donor with almost no experience in public education, was confirmed by the Senate as the nation’s education secretary on Tuesday, but only with the help of a historic tiebreaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence after weeks of protests and two defections within her own party. The 51-to-50 vote capped an all-night vigil on the Senate floor, where, one by one, Democrats denounced Ms. DeVos to a mostly empty chamber. But they did not get a third Republican defection that would have stopped Ms. DeVos — a billionaire who has devoted much of her life to promoting charter schools and vouchers — from becoming the steward of the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools. It was the first time a vice president has been summoned to the Capitol to break a tie on a cabinet nomination. The two Republicans who voted against the nominee, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said Ms. DeVos was unqualified because of a lack of familiarity with public schools and with laws meant to protect students. “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 last week when the two announced their opposition. Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski said they had also been influenced by thousands of messages they had received urging them to reject the nomination. For many educators, Ms. DeVos’s support for charter schools and vouchers — which allow students to use taxpayer dollars to pay tuition at private, religious and for-profit schools — reflected a deep disconnect from public schools. Neither Ms. DeVos nor any of her children attended a public school.Most Republicans described Ms. DeVos as committed to what is best for children. In a fiery speech moments before the vote, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and a former education secretary himself, criticized his Democratic colleagues for opposing Ms. DeVos, he said, simply because she was nominated by a Republican president. “She led the most effective public school reform movement over the last few years,” he said. Mr. Alexander, the chairman of the committee that approved Ms. DeVos’s nomination last week in a party-line split, said she had been “at the forefront” of education overhaul for decades. But Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, demanded before the vote on Tuesday that Republicans explain how they could support her. “If we cannot set aside party loyalty long enough to perform the essential duty of vetting the president’s nominees, what are we even doing here?” Mr. Franken asked.

By midday Tuesday, though, as the vote in the Senate deadlocked at 50 to 50, Mr. Pence, a former member of the House, took the gavel and at 12:29 p.m. declared his vote for Ms. DeVos. In a procedural quirk, a confirmation vote on Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama for attorney general was scheduled after that of Ms. DeVos so he could vote “yes” before leaving the Senate, securing Republicans a decisive vote. Raised in a wealthy family, Ms. DeVos, who married into the Amway fortune, has a web of financial investments, has also raised alarm among critics who worried about the many opportunities for conflicts of interest. She was the first of Mr. Trump’s nominees not to complete an ethics review before appearing before a Senate panel. She filed her ethics paperwork on Jan. 19, two days after her confirmation hearing.

Teachers’ unions and even some charter organizations had protested Ms. DeVos’s nomination across the country. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee that approved Ms. DeVos — and a former educator herself — urged disheartened advocates on Tuesday morning before the vote not to think of their efforts as a waste. “It’s made an impact here and made a difference,” she said. “And I think it’s woken each of us up in this country to what we value and what we want.”

Betsy Devos is an idiot. Betsy devos is stupid. Betsy devos CONFIRMED as next education secretary. Pence votes to approve Betsy Devos as education secretary. Betsy Devos dumb.

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