[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               SECRETARY OF EDUCATION NOMINEE BETSY DeVOS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Fudge) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FUDGE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleagues, 
Representatives Beatty and Kaptur, to address the Secretary of 
Education.
  Mr. Speaker, Betsy DeVos is an imminent and present danger to all of 
America's children. She does not support public schools. Public schools 
are where 93 percent or better of all America's children attend. She 
opposes increased accountability and transparency in for-profit 
schools, and has a privatization agenda that can set public education 
back more than 50 years. Even more alarming, she breaks laws and does 
not pay her bills. DeVos has owed my home State of Ohio $5.3 million 
since 2008 for violating campaign finance laws. Despite repeated 
attempts to collect the money, she has failed to pay those fines.
  As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, 
and Secondary Education, I am deeply concerned about DeVos' nomination 
for Secretary of Education. As a member of the Ohio delegation, I am 
appalled by her deliberate refusal to pay millions in fines she owes 
our State. We cannot give the purse strings of America's education 
system to someone only concerned with her own bank account. And we 
cannot entrust the future of our children to a person who breaks the 
law, cozies up to Wall Street, and calls public schools, which I 
believe are the bedrock of our education system, a dead end.
  I urge my Senate colleagues to vote ``no'' on DeVos. The future of 
our country and our children are at stake.

                          ____________________