Donald Trump is running into some unexpected opposition concerning an important cabinet appointment which he expected to sail through Senate confirmation hearings and be confirmed via a party line vote.
However, Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska both stated on Wednesday that they would not support the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s choice of education secretary. The two women represent the first Republican senators to publically announce that they won’t support one of Trump’s cabinet nominees.
“I simply cannot support her confirmation,” Collins said on the Senate floor.
This astounding decision from a pair of long-time Republican lawmakers puts DeVos’ confirmation in jeopardy leading up to her upcoming final Senate confirmation vote. It also puts the Senate Republican Leadership and the White House in a precarious position, as they must somehow keep every other Republican in line who might otherwise join their two colleagues. If Republicans can get at least 50 votes supporting DeVos, then Vide President Mike Pence would serve as the tie-breaking vote to confirm her.
DeVos is a billionaire heiress married to multi-billionaire Dick DeVos Jr., founder of the Amway Corporation and owner of the NBA Orlando Magic franchise. And while she has no experience working in education and has never held elected office, she did manage to raise and donate millions of dollars towards Trump’s presidential campaign. She’s also a long-time advocate of “school choice” voucher programs and the privatization of public schools.
On Tuesday, questions emerged after reports came out exposing the possibility that DeVos might have plagiarized key sections of her written answers she used during her earlier confirmation from other authors. This revelation prompted Senator Patty Murry (D-Wash), the top Democrat on the committee, to speak out forcefully against DeVos’ appointment, stating:
“This nominee is being jammed through with corners being cut and with the minority being brushed aside,” she said. “We just received responses to hundreds of written questions yesterday, less than 24 hours before this scheduled vote, and with no time to fully review and ask any follow-up questions. Though, I will say, upon initial review, many of the responses look copied and pasted from previous statements or are simple reiterations of the law and no true responses at all.”
This newest development combined with DeVos’ terrible performance at her confirmation hearing in January, in which she suggested that keeping guns in public schools could be used to protect students from grizzly bears, could be the final nail in the coffin of Trump’s first potentially failed nominee.
Trump has yet to comment either on television or social media about his latest setback, but one can be sure that he won’t have a lot of nice things to say about Collins and Murkowski.
Featured image Drew Angerer/Getty Images
