Give them credit for this one: Democrats have fought hard to stop Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s blazingly unqualified pick for education secretary. With just hours to go before the vote, DeVos currently has the votes to squeak through on a tie-breaker from Mike Pence, but the pressure is still on Republicans to flip and sink her nomination. Democrats took the Senate floor and spoke all night against DeVos, raising some damn good points:
"When presented with a nominee who says that public education is a 'dead end' for students in this country, people take it personally," [Sen. Chris Murphy] said, referring to a 2015 speech given by DeVos. "It hurts, because we all know that public schools can be better... but we know it’s not a dead end ... Public education wasn’t a dead end for me. I get to be a United States senator because of the public education that I got."
Sen. Tim Kaine cited the moment, during her hearing, when he asked DeVos if she would hold all schools that receive any taxpayer funding equally accountable, be they public, private, or charter, and she dodged the question repeatedly:
"But if you hold public schools accountable while you’re taking some of their money away and you give that money to private schools, and you don’t hold them accountable, you’re not promoting fair competition," he said. "You’re not promoting student outcomes. You’re just basically taking money away from public schools and giving it to private schools."
DeVos would be a disaster, both intentionally—because she wants to destroy public education by siphoning funding into private schools—and because she simply doesn’t know what she’s doing and is not qualified for the job. If you have a Republican senator, now is the time to make one last effort to call and urge them to vote against DeVos.