[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1868-1926]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the nomination 
of Elisabeth Prince DeVos to be Secretary of Education, which the clerk 
will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of 
Elisabeth Prince DeVos, of Michigan, to be Secretary of Education.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                              The Cabinet

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise this morning to speak directly 
to my friends on the other side of the aisle.
  Now is the time to put country before party. I understand the pull of 
party loyalty. I understand deference to a new President. But from what 
we have seen in the first 2 weeks of this administration, party loyalty 
is demanding too much of my Republican colleagues on several issues. On 
the matter of the Cabinet, on the matter of the President's Executive 
order on immigration, and on the matter of dealing with Russia, we need 
Republicans to set aside partisan considerations in favor of doing what 
is best for the country; otherwise, our institutions of government, our 
Constitution, and our core American ideals may be eroded.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle are going along with the 
President and treating many of these things as if they are normal, but 
America knows they are not. We need Republicans to start recognizing 
it, saying it, and stepping up to the plate to do something about it.
  I understand my Republican colleagues will go along with the 
President 90 percent of the time, but there are certain issues that are 
too important that demand putting country above party. Now is the time 
to put country above party.
  First, on the Cabinet, our norms of good government and above all 
ethics are being tested by a Cabinet unlike any other I have seen in my 
time in public office. There are so many billionaires with so many 
conflicts of interest and so little expertise in the issues they would 
oversee.
  Take the nomination we are now considering: Betsy DeVos for Education 
Secretary. In my mind she is the least qualified nominee in a 
historically unqualified Cabinet. On conflicts of interest, she ranks 
among the worst. In her ethics agreement, which was delivered to the 
committee after the first hearing, it was revealed that she keeps 
interests in three family-owned trusts that have holdings in companies 
that could be affected by matters related to the Department of 
Education. Independent ethics watchdogs have criticized her ethics 
agreement for failing to deal with these conflicts of interest.
  On philosophy of education, her views are extreme. She seems to 
constantly demean the main purpose of her job--public education. Nine 
out of 10 American kids attend public schools. Her views on public 
education are a major concern, particularly for Senators from rural 
areas. There is not a lot of choice of schools outside major 
metropolitan areas. If you don't have a good public school in your 
neighborhood or in your community, you have nothing. Any Senator from a 
rural State should be worried about her commitment to public education.
  We in New York have the third largest rural population in America. I 
am worried for those schools where, if the school is no good, you don't 
have much choice; you don't have any choice.
  Above all, and on basic competence, Mrs. DeVos has failed to make the 
grade. She didn't seem to know about the Federal education law that 
guarantees education to students with disabilities. She could not 
unequivocally say that guns shouldn't be in the schools, and she didn't 
seem to know about a long simmering debate in education policy about 
measuring growth versus proficiency. Frankly, Mrs. DeVos's answers at 
the hearings were embarrassing, not only for her but for my Republican 
colleagues on the committee who rushed her nomination through with 5 
minutes of questions, only one round, and at 5 p.m.
  Cabinet Secretaries can't be expected to know everything, but this is 
different. The nominee for Secretary of Education doesn't know some of 
the most basic facts about education policy. She has failed to show 
proficiency, and there is no longer any time for growth.
  The American people are speaking in one loud voice against this 
nominee. I have had many people come up to me in New York and say: I 
voted for Donald Trump, but I am making calls about this nominee. 
Americans across the country in red and blue States have been flooding 
our offices with phone calls and emails, asking the Senate to vote no 
on Betsy DeVos. Local newspaper editorial boards, many of whom have 
endorsed Trump, are saying the same thing.
  My friends, the Senators from Maine and Alaska, were profiles in 
courage last week when they announced their opposition to her 
nomination, but, unfortunately, so far they are the exception. We need 
just one more vote, and

[[Page 1869]]

we can get a Secretary of Education who is a lot better than the one 
who was nominated. I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
to follow the courageous example of the Senators from Maine and Alaska. 
We have an obligation as Senators--not as Republicans and not as 
Democrats, but as Senators--to evaluate these nominees and their 
fitness for office because these nominees are going to wield immense 
power over the lives of Americans for the next 4 years. I ask my 
Republican colleagues to look into their conscience and cast their 
votes tomorrow, not based on party loyalty but based on whether or not 
Mrs. DeVos is qualified to be our Nation's leader on education policy. 
If one doesn't measure up, the Senate has a responsibility to reject 
the nomination.
  I realize it rarely occurs, but this should be an exception because 
she is so uniquely unqualified, whether it comes to competence, whether 
it comes to philosophy against the public schools, or whether it comes 
to conflicts of interest, which still exist in far too many instances 
with Mrs. DeVos.


                               Travel Ban

  Madam President, second, the President's Executive order on 
immigration and refugees is so poorly constructed, so haphazardly 
implemented, so constitutionally dubious, so wrong in terms of what 
America is all about, and so contrary to our basic values as Americans 
that my Republican friends should feel a duty to country to help us 
rescind it. Several Members on the other side--I think it is over a 
dozen--have expressed concerns about it. Several spoke out strongly and 
unequivocally about imposing any type of ban during the campaign, but 
now that we have such a ban, they are unfortunately silent. It is time 
for that silence to end and for Republicans to step up to the plate and 
start backing up their words with actions.
  On Friday, the order was temporarily blocked by a Federal judge, 
Judge Robart. On Saturday, the President questioned his court 
credibility via tweet and then asked the country to blame any potential 
attacks on the country on the judge and the courts. He is not a ``so-
called'' judge as the President tweeted but rather a Senate-confirmed 
Bush appointee. That is not how we do things here in America.
  There is a separation of powers for a reason. An independent 
judiciary is absolutely necessary to ensure Presidents and Congresses 
do not break the law or impinge on the Constitution, but this President 
has shown a certain callousness when it comes to judges who rule 
against his whim--Judge Curiel during the campaign and Judge Robart 
now. Instead of attacking the judge, the President should be working 
with Congress to tighten up security where it is actually needed.
  The President has said that if there are attacks, the judge will be 
to blame. I will remind him that not one attack on U.S. soil has been 
perpetrated by a refugee from one of the seven countries in the 
Executive order. This order doesn't make us any safer; if anything, the 
Executive order increases the risk of lone wolf attacks, our greatest 
threat. That is what happened in San Bernardino, it is what happened in 
Orlando, and no authority less than Senator John McCain has said 
exactly that--that it will increase the likelihood of attacks by lone 
wolves, those disaffected people who are egged on by the evil ISIS.
  So I make this offer to my friends on the other side of the aisle: 
Join Democrats in rescinding the Executive order, and we will work with 
you in a bipartisan way in good faith to actually make our country 
safer. Close up that visa waiver program where people from countries--
just because they are generally friendly to us--are not checked. We 
know places such as France and Belgium have homegrown terrorists lured 
by ISIS. They can get on a plane and come here far more easily than a 
refugee from those seven countries. Let's tighten that up. Instead, the 
President gives us this Executive order. Lord knows how he came to it. 
Every expert on terrorism will say there are a lot more important and 
better things that we need to do.
  So let me repeat: The stakes are too high for party loyalty to stand 
in the way of doing what is right to protect this country. We ought to 
scrap the order and start over. The order not only does not protect us 
from terrorism but makes it worse. It stands in the face of what 
America is all about. Our country has welcomed immigrants, and the 
beautiful lady with the torch in the harbor of the city in which I live 
has beckoned us for generations.


                                 Russia

  Finally, Madam President, I ask my Republican colleagues to put 
country over party when it comes to Russia. This administration has 
shown a disquieting reluctance to criticize Russia when it flouts 
international norms and laws. The administration seems hesitant to 
enforce new sanctions and has even hinted at relaxing existing 
sanctions at what has always been our most formidable enemy along with 
ISIS: Russia and Putin.
  Unbelievably, just yesterday the President insinuated that the 
Russian and American Governments were somehow morally equivalent. When 
asked about Putin's authoritarian regime, President Trump responded: 
``There are a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?'' 
Can you imagine if a Democrat had said that? Every one of these seats 
would be filled with people decrying that kind of moral equivalence.
  Russia, a dictatorship where Putin kills his enemies, imprisons the 
press, and causes trouble anywhere he can in the world is morally 
equivalent to this great land? Come on. Where are you? You know if the 
Democrats had said that you would be howling at the moon, and 
rightfully so. But here, I don't hear much.
  Vladimir Putin has little or no respect for the diversity of his 
people, for freedom of religion and expression, for a free press, for 
free and fair elections in Russia--and America, it seems--and he has 
demonstrated on more than one occasion that he will go to any length to 
silence political dissidents, including murdering them. I would ask 
President Trump: Does that sound like America? Maybe in President 
Trump's mind it does, but it sure doesn't to most of America--just 
about every American. It is not the America that this body represents.
  As I said, my Republican colleagues ought to be aghast. I don't think 
anyone from the other side would associate himself or herself with 
those comments. I am encouraged that the Republican leader and other 
Senate Republicans have criticized the President for those dangerous 
remarks, but what worries me most is the policy. Russia is a persistent 
and strategic threat to this Nation. Will this administration cozy up 
to Putin and his oligarchs and relax sanctions? Will they look the 
other way when Russia supports separatists in Ukraine, commits human 
rights violations alongside Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime? 
Putin is the kind of person who, if you give him an inch, he takes 10 
miles. We all have come across people like that.
  President Trump's rhetoric is ceding more of the battlespace to our 
enemies each day. So what we must do in this body is ensure that 
current sanctions stay in place and are robustly enforced. We also need 
to increase sanctions on Russia for its interference with our election. 
We ask our colleagues to step up to the plate, do what they know is 
right, and join us in making sure that the President cannot 
unilaterally reduce sanctions and that we strengthen sanctions for what 
he has tried to do in our election. The stakes are too high to let 
loyalty to this President--any President--stop this body from doing the 
right thing for the American people.
  On the Cabinet and particularly Mrs. DeVos, on the Executive order, 
the lack of respect for an independent judiciary, and on Russia, I ask 
my Republican colleagues once again to consider principle over party 
and their duty to country before deference to the President.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, over the last few weeks, people across 
the country have continued to make their voices heard in opposition to 
the

[[Page 1870]]

nomination of Betsy DeVos--moms and dads, grandmothers and 
grandfathers, students young and old, and cities, towns, urban, 
suburban, and rural communities. People are standing up and they will 
not be silenced. Thousands upon thousands have joined protests in their 
communities. Hundreds of thousands have emailed or called their 
Senators, jamming our phone lines, swamping the voicemail system, and 
shattering records. Millions have engaged on social media, sharing 
information with their friends, signing petitions, and pressuring their 
elected officials.
  It has made a difference. Every single Democrat will be standing with 
their constituents and opposing Betsy DeVos. Just last week, two 
Republicans announced their opposition as well. I can tell you I know 
for a fact there are other Republicans who are feeling the heat and 
could come around.
  This nomination is dead even right now, on the razor's edge. Fifty 
Senators, Democrats and Republicans will vote to reject Betsy DeVos. We 
need just one more Republican to join us, to stand on the side of 
students, parents, and public education in America and say no to Betsy 
DeVos.
  I come to the floor to kick off the final day of debate on this 
nomination. On Friday, I spoke at length, making my case for why the 
Senate should oppose Betsy DeVos. Democrats will hold the floor for the 
next 24 hours, until the final vote, to do everything we can to 
persuade just one more Republican to join us.
  I strongly encourage people across the country to join us. Double 
down on your advocacy, keep making your voices heard for these last 24 
hours.
  Over the past 3 weeks, I have heard a number of Republicans wonder 
why Democrats and so many parents and teachers across the country were 
so focused on this nomination in this moment. President Trump has done 
so much in these first few weeks, and so many of his people he has 
nominated to run critical agencies have not been people I can support, 
but what is it about Betsy DeVos that has inspired so much grassroots 
energy and opposition across this country?
  I think I understand. It is very clear to me. For the vast majority 
of people across the country, public education isn't just another 
issue, it is different. For those of us who owe everything we have to 
the strong public education we received, for those who saw our children 
and grandchildren move through our public schools, for those of us who 
walked into a public classroom ourselves to teach or have friends or 
family who have dedicated their lives to teaching, for those of us who 
see the role strong public schools play in our communities, especially 
our rural communities, often offering an educational and a community 
resource where it simply wouldn't otherwise be offered, we believe that 
a commitment to strong public schools is part of America's core, the 
idea that every student in every community should have the 
opportunities that strong public schools offer. This is a notion that 
is embedded in our values. It is who we are. It is in our blood.
  For those people across the country who feel that way, who believe 
those things, the nomination of Betsy DeVos truly hits close to home. 
It was a slap in the face because she doesn't approach this the way 
most of us do. She doesn't cherish public education. She doesn't value 
it. She is someone who has dedicated her career and her inherited 
fortune to privatizing public schools, to tearing down public 
education, to defunding it in order to push more taxpayer dollars into 
private schools and for-profit charters. She has called public 
education ``a dead end.'' Where she sits from a distance, she has 
called it ``an embarrassment.'' She has disparaged those who work in 
our public schools, saying our best and our brightest ``steer clear.'' 
She has said education is ``an industry.''
  An industry? Well, for someone such as she, a billionaire, rightwing 
activist who spent her career and inherited fortune buying and selling 
companies, she just doesn't understand an ``industry'' that isn't 
focused on profits and that doesn't exist in the free market. When 
people across the country hear someone such as Betsy DeVos say these 
things about public education, when they hear a rightwing conservative 
billionaire more focused on her antigovernment ideology than helping 
our students, when they see that someone who spent her career trying to 
destroy public schools has been nominated to lead the Federal Agency 
dedicated to public education, they start to pay some attention.
  In a Senate hearing, when they see that person so clearly lack any of 
the issues, when they see her unable to explain basic concepts in 
education policy, unwilling to make basic commitments to not 
privatizing or defunding our public schools, confused about the need 
for Federal protections for students with disabilities and so committed 
to a rightwing agenda that she pointed to the need for guns in our 
schools to protect against ``potential grizzly bears'' in response to a 
question from a Senator representing the Newtown families, people 
across the country pay even more attention, and they start to make 
their voices heard.
  I am not surprised that opposition to Betsy DeVos has caught fire 
across the country. I am not surprised people are talking about it to 
their friends, writing letters to the Senators, and showing up to 
protest when they have never done anything like that before because 
this is about their kids, their schools, and their communities. It is 
about the core idea that we are a nation that invests in strong public 
education and one that strives to guarantee the promise and opportunity 
it affords to every student in our country--not that public education 
is perfect, of course not. We have a lot of work to do, but that work 
should be directed toward strengthening public schools, not tearing 
them down. Public education is something that should be valued as an 
important piece of the fabric of this Nation and the expansion of our 
middle class, not scorned and ridiculed by billionaires who never had 
any use for it themselves.
  Friday I spent a lot of time on the floor laying out my case in 
detail opposing Betsy DeVos. I talked about the open questions that are 
remaining regarding her tangled finances and potential conflicts of 
interest. I ran through the strong concerns with her record, her lack 
of experience, and her lack of clear understanding of basic education 
issues. I discussed my strong belief that her vision for education in 
America is deeply at odds with where parents, students, and families 
across our country want to go. I went through the process of how 
Republicans jammed this nominee through our committee, cutting corners 
and doing everything possible to protect her from scrutiny. I will not 
go through all of that again now, but I do want to make one more point, 
one I hope will be compelling to my Republican friends who are still 
resisting pressure from their constituents and sticking with Betsy 
DeVos; that is, no matter what you think about Betsy DeVos's policy 
ideas, no matter what you think of her qualifications to run this 
agency, no matter what you think about her personal understanding of 
the issues or her financial entanglements, one thing is very clear; if 
she is confirmed, she would enter this job as the most controversial 
and embattled Secretary in the history of this Department. She would 
start this job with no credibility inside the agency she is supposed to 
lead, with no influence in Congress, as the punch line in late-night 
comedy shows, and without the confidence of the American people.
  A vote for Betsy DeVos is a vote for a Secretary of Education who is 
likely to succeed only in further dividing us on education issues and 
who may try to take steps to try to implement her anti-student agenda 
but would do so with people across the country. So many of us in the 
Senate are on guard and ready to fight back.
  I urge my Republican friends--and we just need one more--let's cut 
this off right now. Let's ask President Trump to send us someone who is 
qualified, who understands the issues, and who truly cares about public 
education. Together, let's stand with our constituents and say no to 
Betsy DeVos.

[[Page 1871]]

  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I wish to start by thanking Senator 
Murray and the Members of the HELP Committee for the work they have 
done to cast light on the record and the lack of record of Mrs. Betsy 
DeVos, President Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Education.
  As the Senator from Washington has told us, the more the American 
people learn about the record of Betsy DeVos, the more concerned they 
become. The American people are making their voices heard in every 
Senate office. The switchboard has been essentially shut down, and I 
can tell you that I have received over 14,000 calls from Maryland on 
this nominee alone.
  People are calling because the more they look at the record, the more 
they realize this nominee's lack of commitment to the essential mission 
of the Department of Education. That mission is to provide every child 
in America with access to a quality public education. This concern 
about the nominee is shared across political parties.
  As Senator Susan Collins of Maine said on this floor, Mrs. DeVos's 
concentration on vouchers ``raises the question about whether she fully 
appreciates that the Secretary Of Education's primary focus must be on 
helping States and communities, parents, teachers, school board 
members, and administrators strengthen our public schools.''
  Regardless of ZIP Code, our mission must be to provide every child 
with access to a high-quality neighborhood public school. It is 
absolutely true that in too many places around in country we are 
failing to meet the goal, but the response to a troubled school should 
not be to walk away from it in favor of sketchy voucher schemes. 
Instead we must work together to provide the necessary resources and 
interventions to help those schools and those students achieve success. 
Over the last 2 years, I have spent a lot of time traveling over the 
great State of Maryland. I visited schools, talked to college students, 
and heard from parents. No matter where I went, in every part of our 
State, everybody wanted the same thing: a good school, affordable 
college, either community college or 4-year colleges, and a fair shot 
at reaching their dreams.
  The U.S. Department of Education is supposed to help them get that 
opportunity. Let me take a moment to talk about what the Department of 
Education means to some neighborhoods in my State of Maryland. Not long 
ago, I visited a pair of community schools in Baltimore City, the 
Historic Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elementary School in Upton/Druid 
Heights in West Baltimore and the Benjamin Franklin High School in 
Brooklyn, South Baltimore. Upton/Druid Heights is a historic African-
American community in Baltimore. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood 
Marshall, jazz great Cab Calloway, and civil rights pioneer Lillie Mae 
Carroll Jackson all walked its streets, but today it is a community in 
distress. Most of its children live in poverty; 95 percent of the 
students at Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elementary are on free or reduced 
lunch. Despite its challenges, it has a strong faith-based institution 
and community groups. Mrs. DeVos's approach to schools such as Samuel 
Coleridge-Taylor has been to give up on them, to abandon them, and to 
divert resources to voucher programs.
  Fortunately, the Department of Education did not abandon this school. 
In 2012, it designated Upton/Druid Heights as a Promise Neighborhood. 
The Department provided resources to support comprehensive services for 
families. These include B'more for Healthy Babies, which has 
dramatically reduced infant mortality rates in the city; Parent 
University, to help educate parents of young children; and financial 
literacy and education, to help with filling out income tax forms and 
to help families manage their budgets.
  In 2012, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor became a community school. It has a 
community school coordinator, a position that can be filled using funds 
under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which 
provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers of children 
from low-income families. The community school coordinator works with 
parents, students, educators, and community residents to learn the 
needs of the neighborhood and form partnerships to meet them. The 
University of Maryland School of Social Work, which is located just 
down the road, joined them to provide trauma training so that teachers 
could recognize and respond to trauma among the children and go on home 
visits to work with families. They received a grant to build a first-
ever playground on campus--something that most schools take for 
granted. Local churches provided safe spaces for kids. The Weinberg 
Foundation donated a beautiful library. There is a jobs center, where 
parents can look for employment, and a food bank, to send kids home 
with something to eat over the weekend. The school was transformed into 
a place where kids want to be, receiving the mayor's award for the 
greatest drop in students at risk for chronic absenteeism. It has been 
a success story.
  In a little different part of town, Ben Franklin High School exists, 
and it is isolated geographically in the Brooklyn neighborhood. It is 
on a peninsula at the southern part of the city. Brooklyn is a historic 
waterfront neighborhood with strong ties to manufacturing. The Brooklyn 
community built ships for the United States in World War II. Many 
families in Brooklyn have been there for generations. As manufacturing 
left and Bethlehem Steel closed--Bethlehem Steel provided about 12,000 
good-paying manufacturing jobs--times got tougher for those working 
families.
  In the year 2011, Benjamin Franklin was one of the bottom 5 percent 
of schools in the State of Maryland--again, one of those schools that 
this nominee would have walked away from in favor of vouchers. Again, 
the good news is the Department of Education did not walk away. It 
provided extra funding to help turn things around. Using the community 
schools model, they assessed and responded to the needs of the 
students.
  Interns from the University of Maryland School of Social Work 
provided mental health services. The United Way offers a workforce 
development program and an onsite early childhood development center 
that helps teen parents graduate, knowing their children have quality 
care. A family stability program helps families avoid homelessness. CSX 
is working with the school to build a football field.
  Students worked together with their neighbors to take ownership of 
their communities and protest the placement of an incinerator near 
them. Some figured that this low-income neighborhood was a good target 
to put an incinerator, but the community fought back and won. They have 
put thousands of hours into community service, including the Chesapeake 
Bay cleanup. The school's office of student service learning helps 
connect students to internships and job-training programs.
  In Brooklyn, the crime rate and the teen pregnancy rates have 
dropped, and attendance at Ben Franklin is up. When I asked the 
students what they liked about the school, they said: ``We feel like 
someone cares now,'' and ``everyone is positive.''
  At both of these schools, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ben Franklin, 
the principals told me that the community schools model allowed them to 
form partnerships to meet the needs of their students' lives so that 
they could focus on delivering a high-quality education. Because the 
students' needs are being met more comprehensively, the students can 
focus on learning, and because we have a team outside of the teachers 
who are helping provide some services to these kids, the teachers can 
focus on teaching.
  It is important for us to understand that every child who walks 
through the doors of a school has a unique family circumstance and 
their own individual needs.
  The community school approach emphasizes the fact that no school is 
an island onto itself. Every school is part of a neighborhood, and we 
need to understand the special circumstances of

[[Page 1872]]

the children and families in those neighborhoods. It is not just for 
urban schools like Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ben Franklin. Community 
schools have shown success in rural areas of Pennsylvania, North 
Carolina, Montana, and all across the country.
  This idea that every child should receive a good public education is 
as old as our Republic itself. Our Nation's Founders knew the 
contribution of education to the success of our democracy. They knew 
that an educated population would be a strong safeguard against 
tyranny. In a letter in 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

       I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is 
     that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No 
     other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of 
     freedom and happiness.

  As early as 1779, Jefferson was putting forward legislation to create 
a public school system that would give children a fair start. Jefferson 
later wrote to John Adams:

       It was a bill for the more general diffusion of learning. 
     This proposed to divide every county into wards of five or 
     six miles square, like your townships; to establish in each 
     ward a free school for reading, writing and common 
     arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best 
     subjects from these schools, who might receive, at the public 
     expense, a higher degree of public education at a district 
     school.
  He went on to say:

       Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every 
     condition of life, and completely prepared by education for 
     defeating the competition and birth for public trusts.

  Though America did not start the public education system at that 
moment in time, those ideas and that philosophy of education as the 
great equalizer and tool to develop the talents of Americans, 
regardless of the circumstances of their birth, were the foundation of 
the public school system that we have today.
  President Trump gave remarkably little attention to education during 
his campaign. He pretty much ignored the public school education system 
in favor of his $20 billion voucher scheme that would drain huge 
amounts of resources from neighborhood schools like the two in 
Baltimore that I just discussed. With the President offering only vague 
promises and pricey schemes, it is even more important that we have an 
Education Secretary with a steady hand and a deep understanding of the 
critical mission of the Department. It is clear that Mrs. Betsy DeVos 
is not the right person for the job.
  Mrs. DeVos advocates a concept of industrialized, privatized, and 
for-profit schools. This thinking is too small and too cramped for our 
kids. Our goal should not be vouchers for children to try to shop for a 
school with no accountability for quality. Our goal should be a 
neighborhood school for every child that meets their needs.
  We cannot abandon the families who cannot afford to make up the 
difference between the value of the voucher and the tuition at the 
private school. What do we say to them? We cannot abandon the students 
who cannot get accepted into private schools because many of these 
private schools say yes to some and no to others. What do we say to 
those who have the doors closed on them? We cannot abandon the schools 
that a voucher program would drain the resources from, and $20 billion 
is a huge amount of the resources that we currently provide for schools 
like the two I mentioned in Baltimore City and schools in neighborhoods 
throughout the country. So instead of a risky voucher program, we need 
to make our schools better by giving them the flexibility to meet 
student needs and the support to make sure that our children are all 
ready to learn.
  In her hearing and in the responses to the questions for the record, 
Mrs. DeVos displayed an astonishing ignorance about the agency that she 
intends to run and, indeed, about the role of public schools in our 
country. All of us who have been part of this debate know that one of 
the most fundamental discussions in K-12 policy has been over 
accountability and how best to measure student knowledge and school 
performance. There has been an intense discussion over whether to 
measure school and student performance by student proficiency or by 
student improvement and student growth. Mrs. DeVos seemed totally 
confused about this discussion that is going to the heart of many of 
the debates here in Congress.
  Perhaps we should not be so surprised that she has such little 
understanding of the public education system, as she has spent much of 
her career attempting to dismantle it in favor of private, charter, and 
for-profit schools. She has been referred to as the ``four-star general 
of the voucher movement.'' She has forcefully worked to expand 
vouchers, including spending millions on a failed ballot initiative to 
bring vouchers to the State of Michigan. When that didn't work, she 
created the Great Lakes Education Project to fund nonprofits and donate 
to State legislators who would advance vouchers and charters. With 
respect to the millions of dollars she and her family have spent trying 
to influence lawmakers, she stated: ``We expect a return on our 
investment.''
  She received a return in Michigan, where she played a role in a 1993 
law that created incentives for charters to come to Michigan. The for-
profit industry, in particular, responded, and they operate nearly 80 
percent of the charters in the State of Michigan. In 2011, she pushed 
successfully for a law that allowed even low-performing charters to 
expand and repealed the requirement that the State publish annual 
reports on charter performance. I think we all believe that 
transparency is important, and it is shocking that there would be an 
effort to put the facts under the rug. After years of criticism, modest 
accountability measures were introduced in 2015, although Mrs. DeVos 
opposed and successfully stripped a provision from the bill that would 
have established a commission to explore ways to improve Detroit public 
schools.
  Seventy percent of Detroit charter schools ranked in the bottom 
quarter of Michigan schools. The nonprofit Education Trust calls their 
poor performance a ``civil rights issue.'' In a report just last June, 
the New York Times called the situation in Detroit ``a public education 
fiasco that is perhaps unparalleled in the United States.'' It would be 
a big mistake to impose that fiasco on the rest of the country.
  Mrs. DeVos has also advocated for online charter schools, and she was 
formerly an investor in the largest for-profit online school operator, 
K-12, Inc. In her response to questions about this model, she cited 
questionable statistics for the accomplishments of several virtual 
academies. Those statistics were disproved in an article in Education 
Week which compared them to the publicly reported figures used for 
State accountability.
  For example, Ms. DeVos wrote that Utah Virtual Academy has a 92-
percent graduation rate. In fact, the most recently publicly reported 
figure is 42 percent. The last thing we need is a Secretary of 
Education coming up with alternative facts.
  While I believe that nonprofit public charter schools are important 
incubators for innovation, they have to play by the same rules as the 
rest of our schools. But Mrs. DeVos has rejected that equal playing 
field.
  In an exchange with Senator Kaine from Virginia where he repeatedly 
asked her whether or not the charter schools would have the same 
standards applied to them as public schools that received Federal 
funding, she refused to agree.
  It is pretty extraordinary when we have a nominee saying that she 
supports a taxpayer-funded blank check for some schools. Our Secretary 
of Education must be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars and 
ensure that funds are delivering quality and results for students.
  Another area where Mrs. DeVos raises serious concerns is that of 
enforcement of equal rights, especially the rights of children with 
disabilities. All of us know the Department of Education has the very 
important job of enforcing civil rights laws and making sure we have 
equal access to education throughout the Nation. Congress prohibited 
discrimination in education on the basis of race, color, and national

[[Page 1873]]

origin in title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title IX of the 
Education Amendments of 1972 prohibited sex discrimination. Section 504 
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis 
of disability.
  But all of us know that as late of the mid-1970s, public schools 
still accommodated only one of five children with disabilities, and 
many States had laws that explicitly excluded children with certain 
disabilities. When Congress addressed this with the passage of the IDEA 
legislation, it was a big breakthrough for our country and for our 
children. The IDEA was very straightforward and very simple: Every 
child deserves a ``free appropriate public education'' in the ``least 
restrictive environment.'' The law requires schools to design an 
``individualized education program'' for each child with a disability.
  IDEA has been a lifesaver for children with disabilities and their 
families. It has empowered them to get the quality education they could 
not earlier receive, and the law gives them tools with which they can 
fight to ensure that schools address their needs. This is why it was so 
alarming at the hearing to hear Mrs. DeVos say that the application of 
IDEA and the rights behind IDEA really was a State function--the same 
States that historically discriminated against these very children. 
That is not what the IDEA legislation is all about. It is a national 
standard to make sure we do not have discrimination based on 
disability. Yet, Mrs. DeVos in exchange concluded with: ``I think 
that's an issue that's best left to the States.''
  So whether it is her position with respect to vouchers and poaching 
resources that otherwise would go to improve our public schools or lack 
of support for the very idea behind IDEA, we have a nominee who the 
overwhelming majority of the American people recognize is the wrong 
choice to be the custodian of the Department that is responsible at the 
Federal level for providing support and educational opportunities to 
our children.
  In closing, with respect to the issue of guns in schools--and Senator 
Murray, the ranking member, has addressed this as well--it was pretty 
shocking to hear Mrs. DeVos trivialize the issue of gun violence in 
schools when she was asked about this by the Senator from Connecticut, 
Mr. Murphy, quipping that guns might be necessary to kill grizzly 
bears. We have had lots of debates in this Chamber, and obviously there 
are strong feelings. But I think we would all agree that the safety of 
our kids and our schools is not something that should be trivialized.
  In conclusion, let us heed the words of the editorial board of the 
Detroit Free Press. They have witnessed firsthand the experiments that 
Mrs. DeVos has made about education and have written in an editorial: 
``Make no mistake: A vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of 
Education is a vote to end public education in this country as we know 
it.''
  In a speech in 2015, Betsy DeVos said bluntly: ``Government really 
sucks.'' I suggest that she should not be leading the agency entrusted 
at the Federal level with the education of our children, which, as our 
Founder said, is really the root of equal opportunity and the 
opportunity for every child to achieve their dreams.
  I join with the distinguished Senator from Washington State in urging 
my colleagues to vote no on Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. We 
can do better. We can do a lot better for our kids.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, constituents from every State who care 
about our public schools and our students in public schools have broken 
records calling us, their Senators, in opposition to Betsy DeVos as 
Education Secretary.
  In the past few weeks, I have heard from thousands of Hawaii 
residents concerned about voting for an Education Secretary who clearly 
does not believe in our Nation's public schools. I wish to share two of 
their messages today.
  One constituent wrote to me:

       Dear Senator Hirono,
       As a proud Hawaii educator for 30 plus years, I'm deeply 
     troubled by the possible appointment of Betsy DeVos to the 
     position of US Secretary of Education.
       Although I would personally never consider applying for a 
     job I am not qualified to serve in, it's baffling to me that 
     our new Commander in Chief thinks someone who has NO 
     experience as a teacher or administrator could be remotely 
     prepared to lead our nation in this role.
       I don't have to explain to you what a selfless calling 
     being a teacher is, nor do I believe our Hawaii delegation 
     takes educating Hawaii's keiki lightly, so I implore you to 
     work with other leaders in DC to make sure we have a suitable 
     nominee for this essential position.
       Mahalo,
       Sandy from Honolulu

  Sandy and teachers like her devote more time and effort than is 
mandated to ensure that our public school students have a solid 
foundation in education and for life. Teaching is a calling, and I have 
met with many teachers who are totally committed to doing the very best 
they can for their students, and they want nothing less from the next 
Secretary of Education. They deserve a better qualified, better 
experienced, better prepared, and more committed Secretary of Education 
than Betsy DeVos.
  Next, I wish to share a message from Lorelei, a middle school 
principal on Oahu. Her letter begins:

       Dear Senator Hirono,
       As a strong supporter of public education, I ask that you 
     oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the 
     U.S. Department of Education.
       Educators and students deserve a secretary who can commit 
     to supporting every student in all public schools, and a 
     leader that will work tirelessly to promote a public 
     education system that provides each child with the optimum 
     conditions for teaching and learning.
       Betsy DeVos' past work in education and her performance at 
     the recent confirmation hearing demonstrated neither a depth 
     of experience nor knowledge base in education policy and on 
     critical issues facing the community.

  She ends her letter by saying:

       As a principal, I have spoken with teachers, parents, 
     students, and community members across the political spectrum 
     and there is widespread agreement that Betsy DeVos is not the 
     right person for the job.

  As Lorelei said, it shouldn't be asking too much to have an Education 
Secretary who will stand up for public schools and the millions of our 
children who attend our public schools. That person is certainly not 
Betsy DeVos.
  In his opening remarks at Betsy DeVos's confirmation hearing, the 
chairman of the HELP Committee said that Mrs. DeVos was in the 
``mainstream'' for supporting vouchers to send students to private 
schools, instead of investing in our public schools. This is not 
mainstream thinking. Being told otherwise is again dealing in 
``alternative facts.''
  The chairman went on to repeat a so-called argument that Betsy DeVos 
and other school choice advocates make--that vouchers are simply Pell 
grants for primary and secondary education. Now, this is a real head 
scratcher, and I say: What? Here we go again down the rabbit hole, 
where up is down and down is up.
  Pell grants and vouchers are fundamentally different. Pell grants 
help offset the ever-rising cost of a voluntary college education. All 
colleges charge students tuition, and Pell grants provide opportunity 
to low-income students to be able to go to college.
  In contrast, every American child has a right to a free primary and 
secondary public education. Vouchers actually take resources away from 
public schools and make it that much harder to provide a good education 
for all of our students.
  Vouchers take money away from public schools; Pell grants don't. When 
a student uses a Pell grant at a private college or university, it has 
no impact on the funding a State college or university receives. But 
when a student uses a voucher to attend a private school, it takes away 
money from local public schools. How is taking money away from local 
public schools mainstream thinking? The Secretary of Education should 
be focused on improving our public schools, not taking money away from 
them.

[[Page 1874]]

  Furthermore, saying that Pell grants are similar to vouchers reveals 
a fundamental lack of understanding of the Pell grant program. Among 
her many duties as Secretary, Betsy DeVos would be in charge of 
managing $30 billion per year of Pell grants, which help more than 8 
million students afford a college education in this country.
  During the 2014-2015 school year, more than 21,000 students in Hawaii 
were able to finance their college education with nearly $81 million in 
Pell grants. Last Congress, I led legislation to protect and strengthen 
the Pell grant program. But under Republican majorities, Pell grants 
are under the constant threat of irresponsible cuts and dismantlement, 
even though college today is more expensive than ever.
  Can we really trust Betsy DeVos to fight to protect Pell grants? 
Somebody who equates Pell grants with vouchers is not someone who 
understands her responsibilities under the Pell Grant Program. So can 
we really trust Betsy DeVos to support the Pell Grant Program? I don't 
think so.
  I have spoken out against Betsy DeVos's nomination a number of times, 
but some questions need repeating. What are we telling our students if 
we have an Education Secretary who is not committed to improving the 
public education system so that our students can succeed in school and 
in life? Nine out of every 10 students in the United States attend 
public school. What are we saying to them? Is it the best we can do to 
give them an Education Secretary who does not believe in the public 
schools they attend? Who doesn't believe that their education is worth 
fighting for?
  If this is the message you want to send to our students and their 
families, then vote for Betsy DeVos. On behalf of the nearly 200,000 
public school students in Hawaii and their teachers and other educators 
in Hawaii, my answer is a strong, strong no.
  I urge my colleagues to question Betsy DeVos's commitment to our 
public schools and to the millions of students who go to public schools 
and vote against her nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kennedy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak this afternoon about the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education. I know we will 
have had some time later today and even tonight, but I wanted to review 
some of the concerns I have about her nomination in the allotted time 
that I will have--I guess about 15 minutes.
  The first concern I have is a broad concern that I think is shared by 
a number of Senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee. The ranking member, Senator Murray, is here with us on the 
floor, and I am grateful for her leadership on this nomination debate, 
as well as many other issues.
  I guess the broad concern I have is Betsy DeVos's commitment to 
public education. I come from a State where we have had a tradition of 
public education since about the 1830s. I am fairly certain--I will 
stand corrected--but Pennsylvania might have been the first State to 
have public education as far back as the 1830s. It is part of the 
bedrock of the foundation of our State.
  Still, today, 92 percent of Pennsylvania students attend a 
traditional public school. We have charter schools. We have roughly 175 
or so, but all of those charter schools in Pennsylvania have to be, by 
statute, public nonprofit entities. Public charter schools are what we 
have in Pennsylvania. We don't have for-profit private sector charter 
schools. It is not allowed by law.
  There are some limited circumstances when one entity could affiliate 
with a for-profit entity, but we have nothing like what Mrs. DeVos has 
supported in Michigan and across the country. For a Senator from 
Pennsylvania to be questioning a nominee for Secretary of Education 
about for-profit charter schools is unusual because we don't have that 
entity in Pennsylvania.
  My concern is substantial--and I will develop this later--about her 
commitment to public education. In fact, in my meeting with Mrs. DeVos, 
because of my concerns, I said something very simple, but I said it for 
a reason, to remind her about her obligation if she were to be 
confirmed. I said: You will not be the Secretary of private education; 
you are going to be the Secretary of Education, and for most of the 
country, that means traditional public schools, and I hope you 
understand that.
  That is a broad concern that I have, and I will talk more about it. 
My line of questioning the day of our hearing--I should say the evening 
of our hearing--focused on campus sexual assault; and that, of course, 
is an area of urgent concern for a lot of people here, a lot of members 
of the United States. It is also of greater concern now because of her 
nomination. What do I mean by that?
  Let me walk through how I got to my questions with her. We know the 
Department of Justice tells us that college women are twice as likely 
to be sexually assaulted than robbed in the time they are in college. 
This is a number that comes from the Centers for Disease Control. We 
also know that one in five college students experience attempted or 
completed sexual assault while they are in college.
  This is a direct threat to young women all across the country, and I 
think we have only begun as a country--as a nation, I should say--to 
begin to take steps to combat sexual assault, to insist that colleges 
and universities do more to insist that everyone in the education 
field, every person on a college campus assumes some level of 
responsibility.
  One of the reasons we can start down that path and begin to be 
certain that we are at least beginning to wrestle with this problem and 
give young women on our campuses more protection is because of recent 
legislation. We are not done. We have a lot more to do, but I will 
highlight one bill that I led the fight on--the Campus Sexual Violence 
Elimination Act, known as Campus SaVE. That became law in 2013, when we 
were reauthorizing--a fancy Washington word for doing it again or 
improving the law--the Violence Against Women Act. I was glad we were 
able to take a substantial step to tackle this horrific problem of 
sexual assault on campus.
  That legislation was followed by regulations. If I could summarize 
them, that law and the regulations that followed made sure that 
colleges and universities have clear guidelines, that victims know what 
their rights are, that victims know where to turn in the event of an 
assault, that we do a lot more on prevention, that bystanders can no 
longer be inactive, that they have to be trained and prepared to help, 
and that the entire college campus is focused on preventing sexual 
assault and then making sure, in the aftermath of an assault, it is 
dealt with appropriately.
  This legislation has helped campus communities respond to not only 
sexual assault but domestic assault, dating violence, as well as 
stalking. It does give students and employees the opportunity to do 
more than has been done on college campuses.
  When I was questioning Mrs. DeVos, I asked her if she would commit to 
upholding title IX, the nondiscrimination statute that includes 
important protections against sexual assault. I asked her very 
specifically about the Department of Education's Office for Civil 
Rights, which had issued guidance in 2011 that advises institutions of 
higher education to use the so-called preponderance of the evidence 
standard for campus conduct proceedings. Some may be familiar with that 
standard. It is a standard that we have used in our jurisprudence for 
civil cases across the country. You don't have to prove, nor should a 
victim of sexual assault on campus have to prove by the higher 
standard; say clear and convincing is a higher standard or beyond a 
reasonable

[[Page 1875]]

doubt is a criminal standard. What the Department of Education said to 
the university campuses across the country is, the standard you should 
use is preponderance of the evidence. They based that determination 
after consulting with experts and advocates across the country. That is 
the state of law currently, the guidance from the Department of 
Education about that evidentiary standard, my legislation Campus SaVE, 
and that is where we are now.
  I simply asked Mrs. DeVos whether or not she would commit to 
enforcing current law and abiding by the 2011 Department of Education 
guidance. Her response was that it would be premature--I am using her 
word ``premature''--to make that kind of commitment. I was stunned by 
that answer. Why would it be premature to say you are going to enforce 
current law? Why would it be premature to say that you can't make a 
commitment to insisting upon an evidentiary standard that is in place 
right now? That made no sense to me, and I don't think it made any 
sense to people across the country who have been working on this 
problem and trying to get the attention of the Senate and the House and 
any administration for years, if not for decades.
  We finally arrived at a place where we are at long last dealing with 
sexual assault in a very aggressive and appropriate and fair manner. 
Now we have a nominee who says she is not sure whether she can commit 
to that. That gave me great pause and is one of the reasons I don't 
support her nomination. I have several reasons. I know I am running low 
on time, but I will wrap up this portion in a moment.
  Another area of concern is the answers to questions she gave with 
regard to specific questions about students with disabilities. This was 
a set of questions asked by a number of Senators, but I will try to 
summarize it this way. She seemed to have a lack of knowledge, an 
apparent and I think obvious lack of knowledge, about basic Federal 
law, a law that was passed decades ago, the Individuals with 
Disabilities Education Act. She didn't seem to know that was a Federal 
statute. She seemed to assert that somehow States could decide whether 
to enforce the policy that undergirded that Federal law. That, of 
course, is not the case. It is Federal law, and we have to make sure 
individuals--in this case, students with disabilities--get the rights 
they are accorded by virtue of that law. Her lack of knowledge in this 
area was of concern, but maybe even greater concern was a lack of--or 
seeming lack of, in my judgment--determination to once again enforce 
this law, to make sure that on her watch the law that would protect 
students with disabilities would be enforced to the full extent of the 
law and nothing less. She didn't seem to be willing to commit to that 
or didn't seem to have the kind of commitment I would expect from a 
Secretary of Education.
  What we would all expect, Democrats and Republicans, I would hope, is 
a Secretary of Education who is a champion for public schools, is a 
champion for those children in public schools, will fight battles and 
urge States to make the investments in public education, would urge the 
Congress to make investments in public education, in early learning, 
and all of the concerns we have about lack of funding in public 
education.
  I would hope both parties would want a Secretary of Education who is 
a champion for students with disabilities, who would be a champion for 
those who are victims of sexual assault on our college campuses. 
Unfortunately, because of a series of questions posed both at the 
hearing and in written questions that were submitted for the record--to 
which Mrs. DeVos gave written answers--I see that basic commitment 
lacking. For that and many reasons which we will develop a little later 
tonight, I will be voting no on her confirmation vote.
  I appreciate this opportunity to share some of my thoughts and hope 
to be back later this evening.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. My mom was a 
public schoolteacher, and she taught second grade until she was 70 
years old. She loved teaching. Her favorite unit was actually the 
Monarch Butterfly Unit, where she would dress up as the monarch 
butterfly, and she would teach the kids about metamorphosis. The 
costume she wore, she would also wear to the supermarket afterward. She 
was dressed as this big monarch butterfly, with little antennae on her 
head and a sign that said: ``To Mexico or bust'' because that is where 
the monarch would fly on its way from Canada through Minnesota and 
down. It was the night before my mom's funeral at the visitation where 
I met a family who came up to me, and the mom was sobbing. I didn't 
know what was going on. I had never met them. They had their older son 
with them who had pretty severe disabilities. She said: You know, your 
mom had my kid here in school when he was in second grade. Now he was 
grown up. She said: He always loved that Monarch Butterfly Unit. After 
he graduated, your mom would continue to go to the grocery store, and 
that was why she would go to the store every year. He had gotten a job 
bagging groceries. She would stand in the line in her monarch butterfly 
outfit for years and give him a big hug when she got to the end of the 
line. That was my mom. She loved her kids and she was a devoted 
teacher.
  I went to public school through elementary to high school. My 
daughter went to public school. I learned that basic right we have in 
this country; that every child should have the right to an education. 
That led me to the conclusion--after reviewing the record of the 
hearing and talking to my colleagues on the committee--that this 
nominee and I do not share the same value when it comes to that public 
education. I note that two of my Republican colleagues, Senators 
Collins and Murkowski, have come to the same conclusion. One of the 
most troubling examples of Mrs. DeVos's views came when she was 
questioned by two of my colleagues. I note Senator Murray is here. We 
thank her for her leadership on the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee. Two of my colleagues, Senators Maggie Hassan and 
Tim Kaine, asked the nominee about whether schools should meet the 
standards outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 
or, as it is known, IDEA. Mrs. DeVos said she would leave the decision 
of whether to offer equal educational opportunities to the States. This 
is simply unacceptable. It is not the kind of leadership we need. This 
is not why we have IDEA. I think most education professionals and 
people who are experts in this area would know that is not the answer.
  I occupy the Senate seat that was once held by Minnesota's own Hubert 
Humphrey. He was someone who was never at a loss for words. He 
delivered a speech to the Minnesota AFL-CIO 40 years ago. One line of 
that speech is just as appropriate and meaningful today as it was back 
then. He said:

       The moral test of government is how that government treats 
     those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who 
     are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are 
     in the shadows of life, the needy, the sick and the disabled.

  I submit that Mrs. DeVos's opposition toward providing equal 
education opportunities to students with disabilities does not meet 
that moral test. Her views are at odds with decades of bipartisan 
support for IDEA.
  In 1975, when Congress passed the original version of IDEA, half of 
all children with disabilities were not receiving appropriate 
educational services, and 1 million children with disabilities were 
excluded entirely from the public school system. In an impassioned 
floor speech, then-Senator and later Vice President Walter Mondale of

[[Page 1876]]

Minnesota talked about the need for IDEA. Before the 1975 law, disabled 
children were placed in segregated schools and classes with little 
emphasis on an education, training, or development. Many parents also 
gave up on the poor services offered by the public schools. As a 
result, disabled students remained at home. To tackle this problem, 
Republicans and Democrats came together to pass legislation ensuring 
that students with disabilities would have equal access to public 
education, just like all other kids. The law guaranteed and continues 
to guarantee today--the Federal law--that students with disabilities 
get a free and appropriate public education. It is not a State-by-State 
requirement. It is a Federal requirement.
  In 1975, both Minnesota Senators played a significant leadership role 
in enacting this groundbreaking civil rights legislation. Senator 
Humphrey called IDEA one of the most significant pieces of legislation 
and a major commitment in this Nation's commitment to its children. 
Then-Senator Mondale argued that this landmark legislation holds a 
promise of new opportunity for 7 million children in this country. When 
Congress first enacted this law in 1975, this was not a partisan issue. 
The law passed both Houses with overwhelming majorities. The Senate 
voted in favor of the landmark legislation by a margin of 87 to 7; the 
House, by a vote of 404 to 7. Bipartisan support for IDEA grew stronger 
over time.
  In 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed into law a bill that 
reauthorized the Disabilities Act. That bill was introduced by former 
Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and former Minnesota Republican Senator 
Dave Durenberger. The reauthorization was so uncontroversial that it 
passed by a voice vote in both the House and the Senate. Members from 
both parties supported IDEA when it was reauthorized again in 2003. 
Every single member of the Minnesota delegation, all 10--Democrats and 
Republicans alike--supported IDEA's reauthorization that year. For four 
decades, IDEA has garnered support from both sides of the aisle because 
we all understand the need to support the most vulnerable among us.
  Every Member of Congress knows a family member or a person who has 
been affected by disability. For a lot of lawmakers, this is personal. 
When my daughter was born, she couldn't swallow for nearly 2 years. She 
had a feeding tube, and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with 
her. It ended up being a temporary problem and not a permanent 
disability, but those 2 years I still look back at as a gift. They were 
a gift that brought our family closer together, but they were a gift 
because they made me understand what parents of kids with disabilities 
face every single day. This wasn't just a temporary thing for the 
parents I met. This was something they face every single day.
  Since the passage of IDEA, our Nation has moved to fulfill the 
promise of providing a high-quality education to kids with 
disabilities. Today, more than 4.7 million children with disabilities 
rely on IDEA to protect their access to high-quality education. Over 
the last 40 years, the Democratic and Republican Members who have come 
before me have all fought to preserve those critical rights and 
opportunities.
  These are American values. But they are especially near and dear to 
our State, where we have this long and proud tradition of working to 
ensure that people with disabilities have access to the same basic 
resources and opportunities as everyone else. This is not just the 
original work by Senators Humphrey and Mondale, carried on, of course, 
by Senator Durenberger and others, but it happened in our State as 
well.
  To cite a few examples, it was the Minnesota Ramp Project that 
introduced a new American model for building statewide standardized 
wheelchair ramps. Minnesota was the State that sent Paul Wellstone to 
the Senate, where he fought long and hard for mental health parity. My 
State is also home to some of the most innovative centers for the 
disabled in the country, including PACER, the Courage Center, and ARC.
  When it comes to educating children with disabilities, Minnesota has 
also been one of the Nation's leaders. In 1957, our State became one of 
the first States in the Nation to pass a law requiring that special 
education services be provided to children and youth with disabilities. 
In our State, from birth to adulthood, kids with disabilities have 
access to the quality of life they deserve.
  Through IDEA, our State is able to receive Federal funding for early 
intervention services that help diagnose disabilities or developmental 
delays among infants and toddlers. Minnesota also provides each child 
with a disability and their family a personalized K-12 education plan 
and the support needed to transition from high school to postsecondary 
education.
  These civil rights protections and funding under IDEA have also been 
an area of bipartisan cooperation among members of the Minnesota 
delegation. We would like to see even more funding. We don't see us 
move backwards. At least one Minnesota Republican has cosponsored every 
version of IDEA and its reauthorization over the last 40 years. We have 
never had a Secretary of Education who has put these commonsense 
bipartisan benefits at risk.
  Today, over 124,000 Minnesota children rely on the protections in 
IDEA. I have heard from families in my State, and so many of them tell 
me how that Federal law has made a real difference in their lives. A 
mom from Watertown, MN, told me all about her son who was born with 
Down syndrome. She is so thankful for the Federal law because this 
protection ensures that he can have everyday experiences like other 
kids.
  It allows her son to be fully integrated with the rest of the 
students in his high school. As a result, he has developed many 
friendships and a strong social network. When she asks her son whether 
he likes school, he always says a resounding ``yes.''
  A mother of two autistic kids who are deafblind, reached out to me 
from Farmington, MN. She tells me that she depends on IDEA because the 
law gives her an opportunity to participate in designing individualized 
education programs for her children. These programs allow her to tailor 
the best possible educational plans.
  A woman from Lakeville, MN, told me that when her son was born with 
intellectual and developmental disabilities in the late 1980s, and she 
was so worried about what his future would look like. But because of 
IDEA, he received specialized services at school while still being 
included in activities with the rest of his peers. Today, she tells me 
that he is a successful young adult who happily lives, learns, and 
works in his community.
  During my time in the Senate, I have worked to share those Minnesota 
values that you hear resonating in those letters across the country. 
That is why I helped lead the push in Congress to successfully pass 
bipartisan legislation with Senators Burr and Casey called the 
Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, or ABLE Act, a law that will 
help people with disabilities and their families better plan for their 
futures. It is a law that President Obama signed.
  We have made progress in removing barriers and empowering people with 
disabilities. Of course, we know that the ABLE Act alone is not enough. 
We still need to ensure that the Federal Government lives up to its 
promise to support education for those with disabilities by enforcing 
and protecting the IDEA and fully funding special education. Providing 
equal educational opportunities for children with disabilities is an 
issue that cuts across partisan lines.
  It is an issue of decency and an issue of dignity, and I believe it 
is an issue that we must all stand behind as Americans. I cannot 
support a nominee that would jeopardize the education of millions of 
disabled children across our country or someone that is not fully 
informed at her own hearing about such an important law. We have 
continuously maintained and strengthened educational laws for children 
with disabilities because every child deserves a chance to succeed.
  I think about my mom and all those years of teaching--teaching 30 
second

[[Page 1877]]

graders at age 70. I think about that boy, who is now a man, who in the 
second grade had her as a teacher. He had severe disabilities, but she 
did everything to make his learning experience as good as all the other 
kids that were in that class.
  I think of how he loved that butterfly unit and felt the passion that 
my mom brought to teaching it. In her own free time, she would go visit 
him at his job at that checkout line in the grocery store in her 
butterfly outfit. That was integrating kids with disabilities into our 
school systems. That is what special teachers and special education 
experts who see all children as special are all about.
  Thank you. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing Mrs. DeVos's 
nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator 
from Minnesota for her comments. She speaks from experience and 
knowledge, as has the senior Senator from Washington State, on this 
issue.
  In my years here, I have seen thousands of confirmation votes, 
literally at all levels, up to and including Cabinet members and 
Supreme Court justices. I have voted for a large majority of a 
President's nominations--both Republican and Democratic Presidents. 
Some may not have been those I would have chosen, but I felt that, at 
least, the President should be given the prerogative, if the person is 
qualified.
  Now, ideology is one thing, and qualification is another. Out of 
those thousands of confirmation votes, I have a hard time remembering 
any that were like this one. This one had a whirlwind confirmation 
hearing and committee vote. It was almost as though they were afraid to 
have the nominee actually have to appear and answer questions. And now 
the Senate is going to vote on the nomination of Betsy DeVos to lead 
the Department of Education.
  I will be very blunt. On the very little time that she was allowed to 
be shown to the public, she showed--and I certainly believe this--that 
she does not have the qualifications to uphold the Department of 
Education's primary goal--that of ensuring that all students--all 
students, not just the wealthy, but all students--have access to a 
quality, public education that allows them to succeed.
  I am both a father and a grandfather, and I am proud of it. I watched 
my children go to school. And now I see my grandchildren going to 
school. I understand well the impact of education on our children. When 
students have access to strong public education from the very 
beginning, they are more apt to succeed in the long run.
  Our Nation's public schools--as is the case in my home State of 
Vermont--hold the promise of student success through strong State 
accountability measures and legal protections regardless of one's race, 
income, or learning ability. They offer nutritious meals for 
underserved students, many of whom receive their only meals of the day 
at school. Any teacher will tell you that if you have a hungry child, 
you have a child who cannot learn. If a child is fed, you have a child 
who can learn.
  Public education means strong teachers and school leaders, technology 
in the classroom, an assessment to test not just how well a student can 
memorize material for an exam on a particular day of the year, but how 
much they have grown over the course of many months.
  Many of the schools have counselors and nurses. They operate under a 
modern infrastructure to support those with disabilities and children 
in foster care. But public education also means that both the States 
and the Federal Government are held accountable for everyone having 
access to the same excellent resources.
  In fact, just over 1 year ago, this body agreed to these protections. 
We passed the Every Student Succeeds Act here in the Senate by a vote 
of 85 to 12--an amazing, overwhelming, bipartisan vote. It was the firm 
agreement among the majority of the Senate--Republicans and Democrats 
alike--that all students deserve access to critical public school 
resources in order to succeed. We made a promise that we would do 
better by our students; that public schools would be the premier 
standard for outstanding education for all.
  Unfortunately, the nominee before us--in the very little time that 
she was allowed to testify and be questioned in the confirmation 
hearing--showed that she does not share these same goals. Instead, she 
has referred to public schools as a ``dead end.''
  Well, if you are a billionaire, you have a choice to go wherever you 
want to school. Maybe these people in a public school are not good 
enough for you? Well, then, go buy a school if you want. Most people 
don't have that option. Most people are hard working. My wife and I 
were when our kids were in school. Our children are today.
  What does Betsy DeVos advocate for? She advocates for the 
privatization of education. She has funneled millions of dollars into 
organizations and initiatives to promote private school vouchers and 
school choice.
  These efforts have diverted public funds toward private schools, 
schools that are not held to any antidiscrimination or accountability 
standards. These schools can discriminate all they want.
  At her confirmation hearing--in the very little time that she did 
speak--she did not understand the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act. This is a landmark law. It is a Federal law that public 
schools in all 50 States must follow.
  Lastly, Mrs. DeVos and her family have contributed to anti-LGBT 
causes and anti-women's health efforts, which are in direct conflict to 
the one who is supposed to lead the Department of Education. How can a 
nominee disagree with the mission of the Department of Education and be 
fit to oversee that agency and promote the civil rights of schools and 
college campuses?
  She also appears to oppose efforts to expand college access, in an 
era when college is so important. Again, in the little bit of time she 
was allowed to testify before the Senate HELP Committee in January, 
Mrs. DeVos, when asked, would not agree to work with States to offer 
free community college to eligible students, instead saying that 
``nothing in life is truly free.'' This is an easy thing to say if you 
are a billionaire.
  She also admitted to knowing little about the Pell Grant Program and 
Federal student loans, as neither she nor her children have ever had to 
use such resources. As most of us know our children will have to use 
them, this is simply out of touch with the real life expectations of 
millions of students and families who rely on these funds to make 
college attainable.
  It is what I hear from hard-working families in Vermont. Parents tell 
me that their child is going to be the first one in their family to go 
to college, and the only reason they can do it is because they can get 
Pell grants or Federal student loans. Mrs. Devos's answer is: What are 
those?
  College tuition rates have climbed more than 300 percent in the last 
decade. It is unacceptable to deny students Federal financial 
resources. To say, well, if you are rich, you can have them, but 
otherwise, tough.
  As it is, students are increasingly saddled by insurmountable student 
loan debt. Many forgo starting a family, or buying a house or a car. 
Many of these students have also fallen prey to for-profit 
institutions, many of which continue to offer the false promise of 
gainful employment upon graduation. In reality, many of these 
institutions offer nontransferable credits or unaccredited degrees, and 
are increasingly shuttering their doors, leaving students with 
egregious debt and nowhere to turn to finish their degrees.
  The Department of Education has an extremely important role to ensure 
that all students--of every race, income level, or whether that student 
has disabilities or not--have access to the critical tools provided by 
public schools and by student financial aid programs.
  Thousands--thousands--of Vermont-
ers have called or written to me worried that Mrs. DeVos does not agree 
with these principles. When I say thousands, to put that in context, we 
are

[[Page 1878]]

the second smallest State in the Union. Thousands have contacted me. I 
share these concerns of my fellow Vermonters.
  They know my children went to public school. They want to be able to 
send their children to public school too. They want the best education.
  I am telling these Vermonters I will not support this confirmation. 
It is dangerous and shortsighted to confirm someone who has so much to 
learn about our Nation's public schools and the challenges they face.
  Universal free public schools were a revolutionary American 
invention. It has helped make America the great Nation it is today. So 
in the United States, we should strengthen public schools, not snub 
them.
  Mrs. DeVos is the wrong choice for our children but also for our 
Nation's future. Our public schools need strong leadership, not someone 
who has made it her life's work to undermine their success. So I oppose 
this nomination. I hope my fellow Senators will too.


                               Travel Ban

  Mr. President, while I have the floor, I will just take another 
minute or two to mention something else, as I have mentioned Vermont.
  On February 1 of this year, Vermont welcomed 31 new U.S. citizens 
from 14 countries through a naturalization ceremony in Rutland, VT. 
Later that night, more than 1,000 people from our small city in Vermont 
gathered on our statehouse lawn--just a few feet from where I was born 
and raised--in support of refugees and immigrants.
  We Vermonters understand what community means. It is a helping hand 
in a time of need. It is a kind word in a moment of distress. It is a 
welcoming embrace to calm a fear. We may be small, but in Vermont there 
is no limit to our compassion.
  As with each of our 50 great American States, immigration is a rich 
part of Vermont's past. For decades, we have opened our communities to 
immigrants and refugees. They have all become part of the fabric of our 
State. They have enriched us with their diverse cultures.
  Since the President signed his disgraceful Executive order that 
stymied our immigrant resettlement program and sent a shameful message 
to Muslims that they are not welcome in our country, I have heard from 
hundreds of Vermonters. Compassionate Vermont-
ers, pleading that we continue our Refugee Resettlement Program and 
welcome refugees of all religions, concerned Vermonters, anxious about 
the threats to our Constitution's protected freedoms and rights, 
nervous Vermonters wondering what next steps this administration will 
take in the name of security, but are just rooted in politically 
charged scare tactics.
  Vermonters have already proven that we will not back down. Marching 
in Montpelier and in Washington on January 21, Vermonters' voices were 
heard. In candlelit vigils across the State, their empathy has been 
seen. At the naturalization ceremony on February 1, Vermont's welcoming 
spirit could be felt.
  A man I admire greatly, Federal District Court Judge Geoffrey 
Crawford, gave stirring remarks at that naturalization ceremony, and 
the impact of those remarks are summarized by this one line, which he 
directed particularly to our new Muslim citizens: ``You are equal in 
the eyes of the law.'' Judge Crawford's message was simple: You are 
welcome. You are equal. You are protected.
  My fellow Vermonters inspire me every day. We should all take note 
from their example of what it means to be patriotic Americans.
  So I ask unanimous consent that Judge Crawford's remarks from the 
February 1, 2017, naturalization ceremony in Rutland, VT, be printed in 
the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  I look at Judge Crawford. Frankly, I have no idea what either he or 
the other Federal district judge's politics are. I just know they 
uphold the law. We are fortunate in this country to have a Federal 
court system made up of men and women of integrity, competence, and 
independence.
  I was shocked this weekend when the President of the United States 
tried to demean the Federal judiciary, tried to downgrade an individual 
Federal judge because he disagreed with him. And it was almost within 
hours that he praised President Putin and tried to excuse the 
assassinations--the assassinations--carried out in Russia against 
journalists or those who disagreed with Putin--by saying: Well, that is 
no different than our country.
  Well, Mr. President, I am proud to be a citizen of the United States 
of America, and we are different than Russia. You may have some 
``friendship'' with Vladimir Putin, but let me tell you right now, show 
some more respect to our country and to our Constitution.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Remarks of Judge Geoffrey Crawford at 2/1/17 U.S. Naturalization 
                         Ceremony, Rutland, VT

       Welcome--all of you--to your naturalization ceremony. You 
     will all leave here as American citizens. We are very happy 
     to include you among us. Let me take a moment to talk about a 
     few things.
       First, although our theme today is one of welcome and new 
     beginnings, we should all start by considering both the 
     difficulties of the journeys you have made and the richness 
     of the backgrounds which you bring. First the journey. The 
     Latin poet Catullus said it best:
       ``Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus''
       In English,
       ``Carried through many nations and over many seas''
       Your journeys have not been easy. Some of you have left 
     family--all of you have left friends and the comfort of 
     familiar surroundings for this new place. Some of you are 
     refugees from lands which are broken by war. Today we honor 
     the commitment of our nation to welcoming and caring for 
     refugees. Some of you experienced hunger, illness and 
     hardship. All of you come in search of a better life. But it 
     would not be right to forget the value of the lives and 
     communities from which you come.
       As we welcome you, we honor your heritage--your parents, 
     your culture, and the lands of your birth. You bring variety 
     and energy and new ideas to us. You know a lot that we do not 
     know. You have had experiences that we want to hear about. We 
     are lucky that you have chosen to make your lives here. We 
     need each of you because of what you will contribute to us--
     your work, your ideas, your sense of humor, your food, your 
     children.
       Let me speak directly about our new citizens who are 
     Muslims. What I have to say is simple: you are equal in the 
     eyes of the law. You are just as welcome here as citizens as 
     anyone else. Your faith and your right to worship are honored 
     and protected by our laws. We recognize that the Muslim faith 
     is ancient and learned and that it has contributed greatly 
     over more than a thousand years to our shared civilization. 
     Muslim citizens and residents have served America for more 
     than two centuries in military service, in scientific 
     research, in literature and the arts, in the professions, in 
     commerce, in labor--in all the ways that we all contribute to 
     the daily life of our nation. As Muslims, you have the same 
     right as any other citizen. These include protection from 
     discrimination on the basis of your relations and your 
     national origin and protection of your right to worship 
     freely. These protections are not empty promises. They form 
     part of our constitutional law. These protections are 
     enforced every day by our courts. But let me turn towards a 
     happier subject. This is a day of celebration. Today we 
     welcome you as our brothers and sisters, common citizens of 
     the county we all love and which you have chosen as your own.
       What can you expect in the years ahead as American 
     citizens? Two things stand out: opportunity and individual 
     freedom. These are the values which have brought people like 
     your family and mine to America for more than two centuries. 
     Let's talk about both.
       Opportunity means the chance to work, to go to school, to 
     find a way to support yourself which has meaning for you, to 
     have money for your family, to rent or buy a home, to educate 
     your children and some day to retire with dignity. Because 
     our economy is strong, there is room for you to find a place 
     which suits you. It is never easy, and there are many 
     disappointments along the way, but it is possible and 
     millions have succeeded before you.
       This is a very open society for workers. One job leads to 
     another. Your first job is not going to be your last. You are 
     already in a select group--people who have chosen to come 
     here and have the drive and enthusiasm to join us as 
     citizens. The same energy which carried you through the 
     naturalization process will help you in your search for a 
     good job.
       Now, let's talk about freedom. Freedom means the chance to 
     speak, assemble in groups, worship, and engage in politics 
     without fear of interference from the government.

[[Page 1879]]

       If I can make one respectful suggestion, it is that you use 
     this freedom by getting involved in a cause or a committee or 
     a campaign. Maybe something local--like asking for a sidewalk 
     where one is needed--maybe national--like volunteering on a 
     political campaign. In case you haven't noticed, we are in 
     the middle of a presidential race this year. There is a 
     candidate for every possible political belief. I urge you to 
     take part in any way that suits your own convictions and 
     interests. Freedom is strongest when it is used, not when it 
     sits dusty on the shelf, and we welcome your involvement in 
     public life together.
       People who are born in the United States sometimes take it 
     for granted. Like people anywhere. Or they concentrate on our 
     faults and the unfair things about our society. New Americans 
     such as you bring optimism. You would not have come if you 
     did not see the chance for a better life for your family. One 
     thing is certain--after the work to obtain citizenship, no 
     one here is going to take it for granted. I ask that in the 
     years ahead, you hold on to the hope and great expectation we 
     all share with you on this day.
       Thank you so much for coming to join us today as American 
     citizens.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to Senator 
Schumer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise today to call on my colleagues to 
reject the nomination of Betsy DeVos as the next Secretary of 
Education.
  It is difficult to imagine a worse choice to head the Department of 
Education. Betsy DeVos doesn't believe in public schools. Her only 
knowledge of student loans seems to come from her own financial 
investments connected to debt collectors who hound people struggling 
with student loans. Despite being a billionaire, she wants the chance 
to keep making money off shady investments while she runs the 
Department of Education. We need someone in charge of the Nation's 
education policy who knows what they are doing and who will put 
America's young people first, and that is not Betsy DeVos.
  Let's start with her record. Betsy DeVos has used her vast fortune to 
undermine Michigan's public schools. She is sure she knows what is best 
for everyone else's children, even though she has no actual experience 
with public schools.
  In Michigan, the K-12 policy she has bankrolled has drained valuable 
taxpayer dollars out of the public schools and shunted that money into 
private schools, sketchy online schools, and for-profit charter 
schools. Even worse, DeVos believes these schools should get the money 
with virtually no accountability for what these schools do with 
taxpayer dollars. The results have been a disaster for Michigan kids.
  Let's be perfectly clear. This is not a debate about school choice. 
It is not a debate about charter schools. There are people on all sides 
of this debate who are genuinely pouring their hearts into improving 
educational outcomes for children. Massachusetts charter schools are 
among the very best in the country, and they understand the difference.
  Before her nomination hearing, I received an extraordinary letter 
from the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. The letter 
outlines their opposition to Betsy DeVos's nomination, citing her 
destructive record of promoting for-profit charter schools without 
strong oversight for how those schools serve students and families.
  People who work hard to build good charter schools with high 
accountability are offended by the DeVos nomination. This abysmal 
record is troubling because the Secretary of Education is responsible 
for safeguarding the investments that the Federal Government makes in 
public schools and for holding States accountable for delivering a good 
education for all their students, especially those who need the help 
the most.
  The Secretary is also responsible for enforcing critical civil rights 
laws, like the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, but Betsy DeVos's 
confirmation hearing demonstrated to the entire world she is 
embarrassingly unprepared to enforce these laws.
  Her apparent unfamiliarity with these critical civil rights laws has 
terrified families who have children with special needs, terrified 
families in Massachusetts and all across the country. These parents are 
afraid we could have an Education Secretary who doesn't even have a 
basic understanding of the Federal laws that guarantee their kids a 
chance to receive a public school education.
  We still have a long way to go to make sure all kids in this country 
have a shot at a decent education, particularly children living in 
poverty, children of color, children with disabilities, and children 
who are immigrants or refugees. That is why the Federal Government got 
involved in education in the first place, to make certain that all of 
our children, not just some of them but that all of our children get a 
chance at a first-rate education.
  Public education dollars should come with some basic accountability 
for how that money is spent and some basic expectations about what we 
get in return for these investments, not just doled out to some for-
profit school that doesn't even meet basic standards in educating our 
children. This is also true in higher education, where the financial 
stakes are huge for America's college students.
  The Department of Education is in charge of making sure that the $150 
billion that American taxpayers invest in students each year through 
grants and loans gets into the right hands and that students get an 
education that will help them pay back their loans.
  The student aid program is not well understood, but it is vitally 
important to get it right because $1 trillion of student loan debt 
currently out there will impact the future of an entire generation.
  Betsy DeVos has no experience in higher education. During her 
confirmation hearing, I gave her the opportunity to show that she is at 
least serious about standing up for students. I asked her basic, 
straightforward questions about her commitment to protecting students 
and taxpayers from fraud by these shady for-profit colleges. Her 
response was shocking. She refused to commit to use the Department's 
many tools and resources to keep students from getting cheated when 
fraudulent colleges break the law.
  In her responses to my written questions, she even refused to commit 
to doing what the law requires by canceling the loans of students who 
have been cheated by lawbreaking colleges. An Education Secretary who 
is unwilling to cut off Federal aid to colleges that break the law and 
cheat students would be a disaster for both students and taxpayers. 
Betsy DeVos's refusal to guarantee debt relief for defrauded students 
could leave thousands of Americans saddled with student loan debt that 
by law they are not required to pay.
  Betsy DeVos also refused to rule out privatizing the Direct Loan 
Program. Think about this. As if our students don't have enough 
problems already, DeVos is ready to let Wall Street banks get their 
claws into our students and start charging extra profits on top of the 
already high cost of student loans.
  If Betsy DeVos won't commit to strengthening the Federal student loan 
program and running it for students, then she is absolutely unfit to be 
in charge of it.
  I am also deeply concerned about the conflicts of interest and 
potential government corruption if Betsy DeVos is allowed to take the 
reins of the Department of Education. Betsy DeVos is a 
multibillionaire, and that is fine, but for her, that is apparently not 
enough. She already makes money off of several businesses that could 
profit from decisions she makes as Secretary of Education--several 
businesses, at least, that we know about. She said she will get rid of 
the ones we know about, but she wants to keep her family trusts and 
whatever investments two of them hold a secret--a secret from Congress 
and a secret from U.S. taxpayers. She says she doesn't have to follow 
rules that everyone else follows and tell the Senate what her 
investments are or what they will be in those secret trusts. I want you 
to think about that for just a minute. She already has billions of 
dollars, but she won't give up

[[Page 1880]]

her secret trust and her chance to make investments that could create 
conflicts of interest while she is running the Department of Education? 
Who exactly does Betsy DeVos want to help out--the young people of 
America or her own bank account?
  You know, I really don't get this. I disagree with her education 
policy, but the one thing we ought to be able to agree on is that no 
one, especially not some billionaire, ought to keep investments that go 
up or down in value depending on the decisions she makes while she has 
a job working for the U.S. Government. Because of that concern, I wrote 
a letter with several of my Democratic colleagues to raise concerns 
about her potential conflicts that aren't clearly resolved by her 
public ethics agreement. We asked her some simple questions about the 
lack of financial transparency and the shady investments she plans to 
keep while she has a government job. What did we get back? Nothing. 
Zero. Bupkes. She thought our basic questions about ethics weren't even 
worth an answer. That stinks. This whole process stinks.
  At every step along the way, the Republicans have made it clear that 
no matter her inexperience, no matter her radical views, no matter her 
potential conflicts of interest, no matter her secrecy, no matter her 
blowing off basic anti-corruption practices, they will ram this 
nomination down the throats of the American people sideways. Here are 
just a few egregious examples.
  First, committee Democrats were allotted 5 minutes--5 minutes total--
during her hearing to question Betsy DeVos on her troubling record. 
Republicans suddenly invented a new rule that we couldn't ask 
additional questions. This is an important job. I asked President 
Obama's Secretary of Education multiple rounds of questions, and he had 
led a public education system in the past, but I guess when a 
Republican nominee and megadonor is in line to run education policy, we 
are supposed to fall in line and keep quiet.
  Second, breaking with standard practice and what we did for President 
Obama's Education nominees, we were forced to hold Betsy DeVos's 
hearing before the ethics review of her billions was completed. The 
complicated ethics review raised a ton of additional questions, but we 
got absolutely no chance to question her about it.
  Third, Betsy DeVos is the first nominee ever to go through the HELP 
Committee who has flat-out refused to fully disclose her financial 
holdings. She will be the first nominee in recent history to hold 
secret trusts. She was supposed to complete a form that requires 
nominees to list in detail all of their assets, investments, and gifts 
so that the committee has a full understanding of the nominees' 
potential conflicts of interest. No, she wants to keep many of her 
holdings in a family trust a secret, so she just won't tell.
  Fourth, Republicans ignored and overrode the rules of the Senate in 
order to barely squeeze the DeVos nomination out of committee as 
quickly as possible. And now, with at least 50 Senators--Democrats, 
Republicans, and Independents--publicly opposed to this nomination, the 
Republican leadership has rigged the vote so that Senator Sessions can 
drag her across the finish line just before he is confirmed as Attorney 
General. Why is Senator Sessions even voting on this nomination? It is 
a massive conflict of interest. As the AG, Sessions will be responsible 
for enforcing the law against DeVos if her cesspool of unresolved 
financial conflicts results in illegal behavior, but apparently the 
Republicans just don't care.
  Let's face it: The Republican leadership wants DeVos, and they are 
willing to ignore her hostility to public schools, willing to ignore 
her indifference to laws that protect special needs kids, willing to 
ignore the giant ethical cloud that hangs over her--ignore it all so 
that billionaire and Republican campaign contributor Betsy DeVos can be 
Secretary of Education. The American people can see what is happening 
here.
  I commend my Republican colleagues, Senators Collins and Murkowski, 
for standing up for what is right and saying they will vote against 
Betsy DeVos's nomination on the floor. I know how difficult it can be 
to stand up for what is right even under overwhelming pressure from 
your own team to just keep your head down and go with the flow. They 
have been listening to the teachers and parents in their States, and I 
deeply respect their principled opposition to this nomination.
  I have also heard from thousands of teachers, parents, and education 
leaders in Massachusetts raising deep concern about Betsy DeVos's 
nomination. I hear their concern, and I share their concern.
  You know, this isn't just politics, this is deeply personal. It is 
personal for me. My first job out of college was as a teacher. I taught 
little ones, children with special needs, in a public elementary 
school. I have never lost my appreciation for the importance of strong 
public education because I have seen how public education opened a 
million doors for me, and I know it opens doors for young people in 
Massachusetts and all across this country. I believe that strengthening 
America's public schools is critical for securing a better future for 
our children and for our grandchildren. I also understand the vital 
role the Secretary of Education plays in making sure every young person 
has real opportunities and a fighting chance to succeed.
  We are one vote away from making sure this job is not entrusted to 
Betsy DeVos. One vote. We need just one more Republican to stand up for 
the children of America, to stand up for public education, to stand up 
for college students, to stand up for basic decency and honesty in 
government. With just one more Republican, we can say this Senate puts 
kids ahead of partisan politics. With just one more Republican, we can 
say this Senate still cares about public officials who put the public 
ahead of their own interests. Just one more Republican, that is all we 
need. Just one.
  I assumed that the rush to complete this nomination has something to 
do with the fact that Republicans' phones have been ringing off the 
hook from citizens who are outraged by the idea of this nomination. 
Before these Republicans decide whether to help Donald Trump reward a 
wealthy donor by putting someone in charge of the Department of 
Education who doesn't really believe in public education, I want them 
to hear from the people of Massachusetts, the people who on their own 
have contacted me about this nomination.
  I have received countless letters and calls from constituents in 
Massachusetts, including a batch of letters from a new local grassroots 
organization--Essex County #6 Indivisible--that is very concerned that 
Betsy DeVos is a danger to our schools. So I just want to share a few 
of those letters with my colleagues right now.
  I heard from Matt Harden, who is a teacher from Plymouth, and he 
wrote this:

       I have been a teacher for fifteen years and a parent for 
     seven. I feel incredibly proud of the schools in the 
     Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and view my position as a 
     music educator not simply as a job but a vocation. The recent 
     referendum in the Commonwealth regarding the expansion of cap 
     on Charter Schools was soundly defeated by the electorate. I 
     have grave concerns about Ms. DeVos and her ties to corporate 
     interests in education. Schools are not businesses, and 
     students are not products on an assembly line. This line of 
     thinking is a clear and present danger to our students, and 
     reflects a lack of familiarity with the public education 
     system.
       In this matter, my concerns are not limited to the borders 
     of our own state but the equitable access to education across 
     our nation. Ms. DeVos is not the right person to be an 
     intellectual and educational leader for our nation--we need 
     real change and ideas, not privatization and politicization 
     of our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

  I also heard from Alexandra Loos, a special education teacher from 
Cambridge. She had this to say:

       I am a special education teacher who works with children 
     with developmental disabilities, and I urge you to vote 
     against the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of 
     Education.
       I have grave concerns about the qualifications of Ms. DeVos 
     due to her lack of experience in the public education system 
     as well as her record of support for charter and private 
     schools that are not obligated to follow Federal education 
     standards or guidelines.
       Most urgently, as a professional who specializes in 
     evaluating and treating children

[[Page 1881]]

     with autism, Down syndrome, learning disabilities, ADHD, and 
     other developmental and behavioral disorders, I am extremely 
     concerned about Ms. DeVos's apparent lack of understanding of 
     the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the 
     federal law that guarantees ``a free and appropriate public 
     education'' to children with disabilities. During her 
     confirmation hearing this week, Ms. DeVos appeared to be 
     unfamiliar with IDEA . . . stating that she felt that 
     enforcement of this federal law should be left up to the 
     states. This is unacceptable and clearly indicates that Ms. 
     DeVos is unqualified to serve as Secretary of Education.
       With approximately 13% of public school children in special 
     education, it is essential that an Education Secretary be 
     knowledgeable and supportive of the federal laws that guide 
     special education services. Please vote ``no'' on Ms. DeVos's 
     confirmation.

  Yes, Alexandra. Yes.
  My office also heard from Diana Fullerton, a school adjustment 
counselor from Salem. Diana said she had never written to a politician 
before, but she felt strongly enough about Betsy DeVos to write:

       I am a school adjustment counselor in an elementary school 
     in Gloucester. I have never gotten involved much in politics 
     until this election. I went to the Boston Women's March on 
     Saturday and this is my first time writing to a politician. I 
     am extremely concerned about Trump's nomination for Secretary 
     of Education, Betsy DeVos. In my work I support students who 
     are very vulnerable: on IEPS, in high-poverty environments, 
     identifying as gay or transgender, and coming from 
     backgrounds where English is a second language. I believe 
     that Ms. DeVos' extreme and uneducated positions on the needs 
     of students in public schools could harm my children. Please 
     vote against her nomination as Secretary of Education.

  Thanks, Diana. I will.
  I heard from another teacher from Newton, who said:

       I am opposed to Betsey DeVos as the next Secretary of 
     Education. I have spent my entire life as a teacher--first in 
     public and private schools for 14 years teaching French, then 
     as a member of the faculty of Lesley University for 26 years, 
     and now as a teacher in a Life Long Learning program at 
     Brandeis. I cannot imagine having a Secretary of Education 
     who has never had any direct educational experience. I am 
     also very worried about her views of public education and her 
     appalling record on civil rights. Strong education is the 
     foundation of our democracy. Please do what you can to 
     maintain and improve our current system.

  Thank you.
  Yet another teacher contacted our office, this one from Abington. She 
wrote:

       I believe in my community's public schools. In fact, I've 
     worked in them as a teacher for over 15 years. The nomination 
     of Betsy DeVos has me seriously considering a change of 
     employment. Betsy DeVos believes in school privatization and 
     vouchers. She has worked to undermine efforts to regulate 
     Michigan charters, even when they clearly fail, and yet she 
     has never worked in a school. The marketplace solution of 
     DeVos will destroy our democratically governed community 
     schools. Her hostility toward public schools disqualifies 
     her. I am asking you to vote against the confirmation of 
     Betsy DeVos.

  We also heard from parents all across the State, including Leslie 
Boloian, a mother from Andover. Leslie said:

       I am a mother of an 8 year old who is dyslexic. She is 
     smart and very capable of learning what other kids can learn; 
     however, she needs specialized education. Through the public 
     school system, she is learning to read and continues to reach 
     new milestones daily. I fear that Betsy DeVos could put my 
     daughter's education at risk.
       I urge you to oppose Secretary of Education nominee Betsy 
     DeVos, who is best known for her anti-public education 
     campaigns!
       The chance for the success of a child should not depend on 
     winning a charter lottery, being accepted by a private 
     school, or living in the right ZIP code. It is our duty to 
     ensure all students have access to a great public school in 
     their community and the opportunity to succeed. Betsy DeVos 
     has consistently worked against these values, and her efforts 
     over the years have done more to undermine public education 
     than support all students.
       Betsy DeVos has no experience in public schools, either as 
     a student, educator, administrator, or even as a parent. She 
     has lobbied for failed schemes, like vouchers to fund private 
     schools at taxpayers' expense. These privatization schemes do 
     nothing to help our students most in need, and they ignore or 
     exacerbate glaring opportunity gaps.
       We need a Secretary of Education who will champion 
     innovative strategies that we know help to improve success 
     for all students, including creating more opportunities and 
     equity for all. Betsy DeVos is not that person, and I urge 
     you to vote against her for Secretary of Education.

  Thank you, Leslie.
  Kate Brigham, a mother from Somerville, also wrote. She said.

       My name is Kate Brigham, and I am a constituent of yours 
     from Somerville. . . . I'm writing to urge you to vote 
     against Betsy DeVos' confirmation as Secretary of Education. 
     The future of our kids here in Somerville and across the 
     country are depending on you to see the difference between 
     education progress and privatization.
       The majority of America's school children attend public 
     schools. We cannot leave their futures and the future of our 
     country in the hands of a woman whose ideas to privatize 
     school funding have already left the state of Michigan and 
     its children in shambles. Her personal financial conflicts of 
     interest are staggering.
       The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act--which 
     DeVos did not know was a federal law--guarantees rights to 
     both students with disabilities and to their parents. So this 
     isn't just about civil rights; it's also crucial to families. 
     We cannot afford a Secretary of Education who's ``confused'' 
     on what the law is. My own 2-year-old daughter benefits from 
     MA's wonderful Early Intervention program and will need 
     special education services when she turns 3 in September.
       IDEA and the ADA were both signed into law by Republican 
     Presidents. Disability rights are not and cannot become a 
     partisan issue. Thank you for ensuring that public education 
     for ALL will be protected. Somerville, and Massachusetts, 
     needs it. And we won't succeed with Betsy DeVos as Secretary 
     of Education.

  Thank you, Kate. Thanks for writing.
  Samantha Lambert, a mother of four from Everett, also contacted us 
with her concerns. Samantha wrote:

       I am a voter from MA who has struggled with the change 
     coming as a result of this election. . . . It is difficult to 
     focus when there is a new outrage at every turn.
       No one frightens me more than Betsy DeVos. Why? The impacts 
     of her ignorance and disdain for public education will remain 
     with us for a generation. I have 4 children, all educated in 
     the Everett Public School System, one of whom benefits from 
     Special Education.
       We have one opportunity to get it right with our children. 
     I was asked by a conservative friend who was curious why this 
     appointment brought such a backlash, and the answer was 
     simple for me. Our job is to protect our children, the 
     nation's children. Those unable to influence their future 
     with a vote. There is no mandate for the destruction of our 
     most treasured institution, the foundation of our democracy.
       My son deserves a free and fair education, as do his 
     siblings. As do their peers. The children in our school 
     district are in the lower socioeconomic rung. Many rely on 
     public transportation and neighborhood public schools. That 
     takes the choice out of school choice, doesn't it? It favors 
     students on economic lines, furthering the divide and putting 
     an undue burden on the schools left behind who will struggle 
     to serve the students that need this gift of education most.
       The public hearing demonstrated that Mrs. DeVos is wholly 
     unqualified for this appointment. Her answers or lack of 
     answers, specifically regarding IDEA and school choice, were 
     frightening. As a parent, I was literally shaking.
       My nine-year-old son was listening to a portion and heard 
     Senator Hassan mention dyslexia in her question. He cheered 
     and asked if we were going to make sure all kids get special 
     help to read. I couldn't answer him because in her answer, 
     Mrs. DeVos seemed not to know that IDEA is a Federal law 
     protecting these beautiful minds. Protecting them from being 
     a line item that can be wiped away, their future successes 
     and achievements going right along with it.
       I ask you, please oppose Betsy DeVos for Education 
     Secretary, for the good of ALL our nation's children.

  Thank you, Samantha. Thanks for writing.
  We also heard from Laura Fukushima, a mother and former teacher from 
Dedham. She wrote to say:

       Before having my own children, I taught in public schools 
     for five years--three in Boston and two in Tennessee (Sumner 
     County)--and I'm writing to ask you to vote against 
     confirming Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.
       It's evident that Ms. DeVos is passionate about education--
     judging from the enormous amounts of money she has poured 
     into shaping policy--and I have no reason to doubt her 
     intentions are good. But that doesn't qualify her for this 
     job. Here are my concerns:
       1) Aside from having no experience in public schools, 
     either as a parent or a student, she has no experience in any 
     kind of school as an educator.
       2) At her confirmation hearing, she demonstrated a lack of 
     basic understanding of many pertinent issues and concepts--an 
     intimate knowledge of which is required to shape good 
     educational policy.
       3) Despite lacking both the prerequisite knowledge and 
     experience within the field of education, she actively used 
     her wealth to sway legislators in Michigan away from

[[Page 1882]]

     their initial support of bipartisan measures, based on a 
     broad coalition of informed participants, to regulate and 
     improve charter schools. (For the record, I do support 
     charter schools, but understanding that there is a vast 
     disparity in their quality, I see the need for rigorous 
     oversight.) Her efforts, I believe, have been more 
     detrimental than beneficial to the children of Detroit.
       4) Her suggestion that enforcing IDEA should be left to the 
     states is very troubling. Such policy would leave our most 
     vulnerable students very far behind.
       While I agree with Ms. DeVos that our educational system 
     would benefit from some additional choice for parents, I 
     think she's wildly mistaken if she believes a completely free 
     market will fix our schools. We need a Secretary of Education 
     who believes in proper oversight and can help create 
     effective measures of assessment and accountability to 
     improve education for all our children. That's what the 
     Department of Education is for. To run it successfully, we 
     need a Secretary, unlike DeVos, who is well trained in the 
     field.

  Thank you, Laura.
  A mother from Clinton also wrote about how she would be personally 
affected by Betsy DeVos, saying:

       I have an 8-year-old daughter with Autism Spectrum Disorder 
     who receives services through our public elementary school. I 
     believe that every individual deserves an equal education. 
     IDEA must be upheld! My daughter is doing very well with her 
     studies because of the supports she receives. She is a very 
     smart girl but needs and deserves accommodations. I am 
     thankful there are laws to protect her.
       Betsy DeVos thinks that states should decide how to fund 
     education for individuals with disabilities. I believe it 
     should remain federally mandated. I wouldn't be able to 
     afford a private education for my daughter in a special 
     school. I know there are many more parents like me.
       I also opposed expanding Charter schools in our state. I 
     believe publicly funded schools should be publicly run and 
     overseen.
       I request you reject Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary.

  Thank you.
  Another parent wrote to say:

       I am writing to express my strong opposition to the 
     confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. She 
     has demonstrated NO commitment to public education throughout 
     her life, and her support of charter schools in Detroit has 
     been a demonstrated failure. The framing of for-profit 
     charter schools as providing ``choice'' for parents is a 
     false framing--it provides the illusion of a poorly regulated 
     and poorly supervised choice for some parents while limiting 
     the resources and choices left to the other parents and 
     leading to a downward spiral in the quality of public 
     education. Transferring public funding of education to for-
     profit charter schools, creaming off the children of the most 
     motivated parents, and leaving the more difficult, lower 
     income, and children with special education challenges is a 
     prescription for failure of public schools and will result in 
     herding lower-income students into dysfunctional schools, 
     setting them up for a lifetime of underemployment.
       I am not a teacher, nor a member of a teacher's union. I am 
     a mother, and I was proud to send my son to the Brookline 
     Public Schools for his entire K-12 education. I want other 
     children to have a chance for a quality education, not to be 
     the fodder for a private, for-profit charter school with no 
     commitment to the public good.
       Quality public education is the foundation of a free 
     society and the key to sustaining a vibrant economy in the 
     future. Please oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos.

  A woman from Canton also wrote in. She said:

       As a parent of public school children, I urge you to reject 
     the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. A 
     free and appropriate education is the cornerstone of our 
     democracy, but Ms. DeVos has shown no interest in preserving 
     public education. In fact, she has worked tirelessly to 
     divert public funds into private pockets by way of 
     deregulating and expanding charter schools and to offer 
     vouchers which can be used at private and religious schools. 
     This is a clear violation of our principle of separating 
     church and State.
       Ms. DeVos's strategies have had disastrous consequences in 
     Michigan. Eighty percent of charter schools there operate for 
     profit. When schools look first to satisfy investors, they 
     rely on teaching to standardized tests, not on educating 
     children. Here in Massachusetts, we overwhelmingly rejected 
     the idea, one funded by billionaires, and resisted by parents 
     and public school teachers.
       Please join us in opposing a ``lead educator'' who has 
     never gone to a public school nor sent her children to one. 
     Please consider that the nation's future depends on educating 
     every child, and that to do so, we need to restore and 
     strengthen our public school system, not dismantle it in 
     favor of profiting off the backs of our youth.

  Thank you.
  It is no surprise that we also heard from many constituents 
struggling with student loans. One of those was Liam Weir, a college 
student from Brighton, who had this to say:

       As a college student and a resident of the State of 
     Massachusetts, I am writing you to express my deep concern 
     over the potential appointment of Betsy DeVos to the position 
     of Secretary of Education. Ms. DeVos is extraordinarily 
     unqualified to lead such a department. The fact that the 
     President has chosen such a person, with no experience in 
     education administration in any capacity at any level, is an 
     insult to the millions of teachers, students, and school 
     administrators across the country. Ms. DeVos's policies will 
     undermine already struggling public school systems by 
     allocating taxpayer funds to advance a cynical and deeply 
     troubling agenda against established science. I myself am a 
     recipient of Federal college grants and loans, and I am 
     growing increasingly concerned about Ms. DeVos's competency 
     in managing the looming student debt crisis.
       Now more than ever is a time for the Education Department 
     to be run by capable and caring individuals, not willfully 
     ignorant ones.

  A young mother from Winthrop also reached out to us. She had this to 
say:

       I urge you to vote No on the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, a 
     singularly unqualified individual . . . among a veritable sea 
     of unqualified individuals this administration has chosen to 
     lead our country.
       My husband and I have no personal stake in public education 
     over the next 4 years. Our daughter is only 7 months old. But 
     I am the child of two public schoolteachers in RI, my friends 
     are teachers, my friends' children are in school, my nephews, 
     cousins, etc. I believe in public schools and I believe that 
     Betsy DeVos is not the right direction for our public 
     education system. She is dangerous, and her lack of knowledge 
     is appalling.
       Also, and I thank you so much for asking about this at her 
     hearing--student loans are not a business, they are a crisis 
     in this country. My husband has a six figure debt, with 
     interest rates at 7.5 percent. He had to take a job . . . 
     rather than pursue his dreams of working in criminal justice 
     because he needed a job that could pay his $1,000 a month 
     student loan bill. Our saving grace is that I have a good 
     job, and my student loan debt is nearly paid off--because I 
     was loaned a reasonable amount at a reasonable 2 percent 
     interest rate. We are a case study in how the program should 
     work vs. predatory lending.

  That is so true. Thanks for writing.
  Liz Bosworth, a mother of two from North Dartmouth, had this to say:

       While I am fully aware that you do not support the 
     nominations for many of President Trump's nominees, I am 
     currently most concerned about Ms. DeVos. I watched parts of 
     her hearing and I remain concerned that there was a denial 
     for a second hearing. I hope this leads to continued 
     questions and a final opposition of her as Secretary of 
     Education. Your lines of questioning served to highlight her 
     lack of qualifying experience but still, in light of this 
     last six month's politics, I believe anything is possible.
       As the mother of two small children and a daughter-in-law, 
     niece, cousin, friend, and wife of public school teachers, I 
     find her to be quite alarming and somewhat scary as the 
     potential leader of that office. We are strong proponents of 
     public education and of teaching our children to value their 
     time in school and to achieve high levels of success.
       With that comes some anxiety around their aspirations to 
     higher learning. As a master's level social worker, I will be 
     paying off my loans until I start to pay for my son's higher 
     education. I do not want the debt for my children that I 
     have. At this rate, I am saving far much less money per month 
     for their college funds while paying off my own. I want my 
     children to go higher than myself, but I want them to do so 
     with a level of confidence in their finances that I was not 
     afforded. Ms. DeVos, highlighted by you in her confirmation 
     hearing, has not been involved with student loans on any 
     level and does not have the experience to become entrusted 
     with my current debt or the debt of my children.
       Finally, I would like to highlight my abject fear of the 
     treatment of those students with learning disabilities, 
     particularly severe and profound disorders, if she is 
     confirmed. While I see many walks of life in my field, my 
     mother was a proud special education teacher in New Bedford 
     for 33 years. She was proud to be able to teach life skills 
     like budgeting, simple cooking and social skills to her 
     students who may not ever be college ready. We worry about 
     those kids and what will become of them if Ms. DeVos is 
     confirmed. My husband is currently employed in a 
     collaborative that works with mentally ill children who need 
     a different kind of educational process but can still achieve 
     the same goals. I am not sure they would ever qualify for a 
     voucher to attend some Charter school.
       We are committed to families and community maintenance of 
     all students with the right care at the right time. I am not 
     sure that Ms. DeVos is committed in the same way.
       Please vote to oppose Ms. DeVos.

  Thank you, Liz. Thanks for writing.

[[Page 1883]]

  I heard from another student in Boston who told me the following:

       I am writing to you today as a public school teacher and a 
     Ph.D. Candidate in Urban Education, Leadership and Policy 
     Studies. I believe in public schools. Betsy DeVos believes in 
     school privatization and vouchers. She has worked to 
     undermine efforts to regulate Michigan charters, even when 
     they clearly failed. The ``marketplace'' solution of DeVos 
     will destroy our democratically governed community schools. 
     She has no professional experience in the education field. 
     She does not truly understand the nuances of public education 
     nor does she want to understand.
       I managed to earn scholarships that took care of most of my 
     schooling, but I still have about $80,000 in student loans. 
     (Not bad for 2 expensive private institution degrees!) I am a 
     first generation college student and my single mother could 
     not afford to help me pay for my schooling. Betsy DeVos just 
     doesn't have experience in K-12 public schools, but she has 
     no experience in running the student loan department. The 
     Federal student loan program is far from perfect. We need 
     someone running it who is knowledgeable in the process, 
     believes in making college more affordable, and understands 
     what it feels like to not be sure how you will pay for 
     college. She has no qualifications of any kind in this area.
       I am asking you to vote against the confirmation of Betsy 
     DeVos. Please consider this request and the thousands of 
     other people across the country who vehemently disagree with 
     Ms. DeVos's candidacy.

  Thank you.
  Sarah Rothery, a mother of two from Northborough, told me about her 
two sons, saying:

       I am writing to ask that you oppose the confirmation of Ms. 
     DeVos for the cabinet position for which she was nominated 
     under President Trump. I have put 2 sons through college 
     thanks to Stafford loans and personal savings and I think she 
     has no idea what is involved in middle class families 
     financing college educations today. One of my sons is now an 
     8th grade history teacher in a public charter school, Abbot 
     Kelly Foster, in Worcester, and worries that Ms. DeVos has no 
     real understanding of urban education as well.

  Thank you, Sarah. Thanks for writing.
  I have also heard from Alicia Bettano, a former student from Merrimac 
who bravely shared with me her own experiences. This is from Alicia:

       I suffer from a Non Verbal Learning Disorder. Up until I 
     was 13 years old I was not diagnosed with anything. I went to 
     aides, speech therapists, everyone. I had trouble in the 
     maths and in sciences. I was thought of as stupid. I was 
     yelled at by aides. When I was 13 and diagnosed, my teachers 
     didn't understand. They thought sitting me closer to the 
     white board would allow me to understand better, despite the 
     fact that it was their teaching methods that confused me. I 
     was told I would not go to college or graduate. My parents 
     had to hire an advocate to work for me to get my teachers and 
     school to understand my disability. It took me some time to 
     figure out what I wanted and needed, but in May I graduated 
     college.
       Betsy DeVos would be a horror for those with disabilities; 
     not just learning ones, but mental ones. I was lucky I had 
     parents and one teacher backing me. What about the ones that 
     don't? Putting Betsy DeVos into office will hurt our children 
     in America--that's not making America great.

  Alicia, thank you for writing. I really appreciate it. 
Congratulations on your graduation.
  A man from Brookline also wrote in, saying this:

       As someone passionate about education, especially the 
     education of students in Massachusetts, and as a graduate of 
     a public elementary school, middle school, high school and 
     college; as a young professional burdened by education debt; 
     as the husband of an early childhood educator working in a 
     struggling Boston neighborhood; as a member of a family 
     filled with men and women dedicated to careers in public 
     education, I strongly urge you to oppose Secretary of 
     Education nominee Betsy DeVos. My vote for or against 
     candidates in future elections will be informed by whether 
     the candidate publicly opposed this Secretary of Education 
     nominee.
       Betsy DeVos has consistently worked against public 
     education and she is incredibly unqualified for this 
     position. At best, she should be an undersecretary focused on 
     public-private partnerships. If you must work with the 
     incoming administration, suggest her nomination for that 
     role, but you must oppose her cabinet-level appointment.
       DeVos has no experience in public schools, either as a 
     student, educator, administrator or even as a parent. She has 
     lobbied for, and been employed by, initiatives that have 
     undermined public education in America.
       We need a Secretary of Education who will champion 
     innovative strategies that we know help to improve success 
     for all students, including creating more opportunities and 
     equity for all. I urge you to vote against Ms. DeVos for 
     Secretary of Education.

  What does Betsy DeVos have to say to Matt and Diana or to the 
thousands of other teachers who have more experience in public 
education than she does? What does she have to say to Leslie and 
Samantha, whose children have benefited from the programs she wants to 
cut? What does she have to say to Sarah, who relied on Stafford loans 
to put her sons through college?
  It is not just individuals who are worried about Betsy DeVos. We have 
heard from groups across the State as well. The Massachusetts Charter 
Public School Association wrote me, saying this:

       Dear Senator Warren,
       As the Association representing the 70 Massachusetts 
     commonwealth charter public schools, we are writing to 
     express our concerns over the nomination of Elisabeth DeVos 
     as U.S. Secretary of Education. We do not express these 
     reservations lightly, but we believe it is important to raise 
     certain issues that should be addressed by the nominee.
       Both President-elect Trump and Ms. DeVos are strong 
     supporters of public charter schools, and we are hopeful they 
     will continue the bipartisan efforts of the Clinton, Bush and 
     Obama Administrations to promote the continued expansion of 
     high quality charters while pursuing reforms that will 
     strengthen traditional public schools.
       But we are concerned about media reports of Ms. DeVos' 
     support for school vouchers and her critical role in creating 
     a charter system in her home state of Michigan that has been 
     widely criticized for lax oversight and poor academic 
     performance, and appears to be dominated by for-profit 
     interests.
       As the senior Senator from Massachusetts and a member of 
     the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & 
     Pensions (HELP), which will hold hearings on the nomination, 
     you will be in a position to ensure the nominee commits to 
     holding the national charter school movement to the highest 
     levels of accountability and oversight that are the hallmark 
     of the Massachusetts charter system.
       By all independent accounts, Massachusetts has the best 
     charter school system in the country. We are providing high 
     quality public school choices for parents across our state. 
     Our urban schools are serving the highest need children in 
     Massachusetts, and are producing results that have 
     researchers double-checking their math. These gains held 
     across all demographic groups, including African American, 
     Latino, and children living in poverty.
       The cornerstone of the Massachusetts charter public school 
     system is accountability. The process of obtaining and 
     keeping a charter is deliberately difficult. The state Board 
     of Elementary and Secondary Education is the sole authorizer 
     and historically has approved only one out of every five 
     applications. Once approved, each charter school must submit 
     to annual financial audits by independent auditors and annual 
     performance reviews by the state Department of Elementary and 
     Secondary Education. Every five years, each charter must be 
     renewed after a process as rigorous as the initial 
     application process. For-profit charter schools are 
     prohibited by Massachusetts law.
       Our schools have also created partnerships with many 
     Massachusetts public school districts to foster collaboration 
     and best practices sharing, and have forged an historic 
     Compact between Boston charter public schools and the Boston 
     Public Schools that has become a national model.
       Bipartisan support has been key to the development and 
     success of the Massachusetts system. Created in 1993 by a 
     Democratic Legislature and a Republican Governor, public 
     charter schools have continued to receive support from all 
     Governors, Republican and Democratic alike, and Democratic 
     legislative leaders.
       If the new President and his nominee intend to advance the 
     cause of school choice across the country, they should look 
     to Massachusetts for their path forward.
       The history of charter schools in Michigan offers a more 
     cautionary tale. The same researchers from Stanford that 
     declared Massachusetts charter public schools an unqualified 
     success, had mixed reviews for Michigan's charters.
       According to media reports, last year Ms. DeVos actively 
     campaigned against bipartisan legislation that would have 
     provided more oversight for Michigan's charters. If these 
     reports are true, we are deeply concerned that efforts to 
     grow school choice without a rigorous accountability system 
     will reduce the quality of charter schools across the 
     country. We hope you agree that quality, not quantity, should 
     be the guiding principle of charter expansion. Without high 
     levels of accountability, this model fails.
       We ask that you use the hearing to probe the incoming 
     Administration's intentions regarding education policy in 
     general and school choice and quality specifically.
       We'd be happy to provide you with more information on the 
     Massachusetts model and

[[Page 1884]]

     would welcome a meeting with your staff to brief them on our 
     concerns.
       Sincerely,
       Massachusetts Charter Public School Association Board of 
     Directors.

  The people of Massachusetts cannot afford Betsy DeVos. This is why I 
will vote no on her nomination and why I urge my colleagues to do the 
same.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.


               Nomination of Neil Gorsuch and the Cabinet

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, President Trump's outstanding Supreme 
Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has earned high praise from all across the 
political spectrum.
  Some of it has come from unlikely corners, whether Democratic 
Senators, left-leaning publications, President Obama's own legal 
mentor, even his former top Supreme Court lawyer. We have heard from 
those Gorsuch has taught. We have heard from many who have worked 
alongside him. In fact, just a few days ago we received a letter from 
several of his former law colleagues. So let me share some of that with 
you now. The letter began:

       We are Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.
       Many of us have served in government, some during 
     Republican and some during Democratic administrations; some 
     of us have served in both. We have clerked for Supreme Court 
     justices and appellate and district court judges appointed by 
     Democratic and Republican presidents. We represent a broad 
     spectrum of views on politics, judicial philosophy, and many 
     other subjects as well. But we all agree on one thing: Our 
     former colleague, Neil M. Gorsuch . . . is superbly qualified 
     for confirmation.
       He is a man of character, decency, and accomplishment, [one 
     who represented all of his clients] without regard to 
     ideology [and one] who merits this appointment.

  Clearly, it is not going to be easy to paint Judge Gorsuch as 
anything but extremely qualified and exceptionally fair, but that 
hasn't stopped some on the left from trying. They started musing about 
blocking any nominee before the President had even nominated anyone. It 
is a good reminder that much of the opposition we are seeing from far 
left groups and Democratic Senators isn't so much about Judge Gorsuch 
as it is about their dissatisfaction with the outcome of the election.
  As a Washington Post headline recently declared, ``Democrats' goal 
with court nomination: Make it a referendum on Trump.''
  ``[P]rominent Senate Democrats,'' the article read, are ``giving the 
nominee's 10-plus years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th 
Circuit almost secondary consideration.'' It seems they believe their 
best, and perhaps only, bet to bring down this highly qualified judge 
is by ``inject[ing] Trump into the process.''
  The very next day, the New York Times ran an article about Democrats' 
apparent hope that this Supreme Court fight will be ``More About Trump 
Than Gorsuch.'' In other words, our Democratic colleagues are finding 
it hard to oppose Judge Gorsuch on the merits, so they are trying to 
divert attention and invent new hurdles for him to surmount. That is 
the playbook. Sure enough, we see them running the play.
  Consider the assistant Democratic leader's speech the other day. It 
was supposedly about Judge Gorsuch. He sure had a lot to say about 
President Trump, about things President Trump has done, about things 
President Trump might do, about refighting old battles but precious 
little about the qualifications of the actual nominee before us, and 
precious little about the increasing number of accolades he has been 
receiving, especially from well-known folks on the political left. I 
mentioned several a moment ago.
  Now we can add another to the list: Alan Dershowitz, the famous 
constitutional scholar and longtime Harvard law professor. Dershowitz 
described Gorsuch as ``highly credentialed and hard to oppose'' and 
dismissed the idea that he would be caricatured as some sort of 
``extreme right-wing [ideologue].'' ``[T]hat doesn't seem to fit what I 
know about him,'' Dershowitz said, adding that Gorsuch will ``be hard 
to oppose on the merits.'' Indeed, he will.
  That is precisely why our Democratic colleagues are making the debate 
on his nomination about other things and other people. That is also why 
they are arguing that there are special hurdles for Judge Gorsuch to 
clear--hurdles they are forced to admit were not there for the first-
term nominees of Democratic Presidents.
  When even a leftwinger like Rachel Maddow can't help but admit that 
Judge Gorsuch is ``a relatively mainstream choice,'' when even Maddow 
characterizes a Democratic attempt to filibuster his nomination as 
``radical,'' it is hard to argue otherwise. That will not stop many on 
the far left from trying.
  I invite Democrats, who spent many months insisting ``we need nine,'' 
to now follow through on that advice by giving this superbly qualified 
nominee fair consideration and an up-or-down vote. It is time to 
finally accept the results of the election and move on so we can all 
move our country forward.
  That would also apply to other nominations before the Senate. Just 
before the election, the Democratic leader said he believed the Senate 
has a ``moral obligation, even beyond the economy and politics, to 
avoid gridlock.'' Put simply, he said: ``We have to get things done.'' 
Yet just a few months later, Democratic obstruction has reached such 
extreme levels that the smallest number of Cabinet officials have been 
confirmed in modern history at this point in a Presidency. It is a 
historic break in tradition, a departure from how newly elected 
Presidents of both parties have been treated in decades past.
  In fact, by this same point into their terms, other recent Presidents 
from both sides of the aisle had more than twice as many Cabinet 
officials confirmed as President Trump does now. President Obama had 12 
Cabinet officials confirmed at this point in his term, President George 
W. Bush had all 14 Cabinet nominees confirmed at this point, President 
Clinton had 13, and President Trump has a mere 4.
  It seems this gridlock and opposition has far less to do with the 
nominees actually before us than the man who nominated them, just like 
we are seeing with President Trump's outstanding Supreme Court pick. 
The Democratic leader and his colleagues are under a great deal of 
pressure from those on the left who simply cannot--cannot--accept the 
results of a democratic election. They are calling for Democrats to 
delay and punt and blockade the serious work of the Senate at any cost. 
They would like nothing more than for Democrats to continue to resist 
and prevent this President from moving our country forward.
  Unfortunately, many of our friends across the aisle have given in to 
these groups' calls for obstruction, and some have even gone to 
unprecedented lengths to delay for delay's sake. They have forced 
meaningless procedural hurdles, they have stalled confirmation votes as 
long as possible, they have postponed hearings, and they have even 
boycotted committee meetings altogether. Their excuses are ever-
changing, and some border on the absurd. ``We don't like the seating 
arrangement,'' they say. ``We can't be late to a protest,'' they argue. 
There was even some excuse about a YouTube video.
  Look, enough is enough. The American people elected a new President 
last November. Democrats don't have to like that decision, but they do 
have a responsibility to our country. The American people want us to 
bring the Nation together and move forward. It is far past time to put 
the election behind us and put this President's Cabinet into place, 
just as previous Senates have done for previous newly elected 
Presidents of both parties.
  Mr. President, now I wish to say a few words about one nominee whom 
we will be voting on tomorrow. The nominee for Education Secretary, 
Betsy DeVos, is a well-qualified candidate who has earned the support 
of 20 Governors and several education groups from across the Nation. As 
Education Secretary, she will be our students' foremost advocate, 
working to improve our education system so that every child has a 
brighter future.
  Importantly, she also understands that our teachers, students, 
parents,

[[Page 1885]]

school boards, and local and State governments are best suited to make 
education decisions--not Washington bureaucrats. I have every 
confidence that Mrs. DeVos will lead the Department of Education in 
such a way that will put our students' interests first, while also 
strengthening the educational opportunities available to all of 
America's children.
  I urge colleagues to join in confirming Betsy Devos so that she can 
begin the very important work before her without further delay.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                The Cabinet and Congressional Review Act

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I sat here and listened with interest to 
the majority leader's comments about this strategy of obstruction and 
slow walking the President's Cabinet. I share his frustration. More 
than that, on behalf of the people we were sent here to represent--the 
American people--I regret that petty politics has gotten in the way of 
the ability of our colleagues across the aisle to get over the fact 
that the election didn't turn out quite the way they hoped and to get 
back to work on behalf of the American people.
  This week we will continue to grind our way through consideration of 
President Trump's nominees, despite the best efforts of our friends 
across the aisle to obstruct and to slow walk. Because of their 
insistence on taking advantage of every possible procedural delay, they 
have tried to grind the Senate to a near halt, but we have overcome 
that obstruction. We came together early Friday morning and voted to 
move forward with the President's nominee for Education Secretary--
about 6:30 in the morning. It was a little earlier than we usually 
convene, but I am glad we were able to get it done.
  I am confident that we will get Mrs. DeVos confirmed soon. Then, 
thanks to former Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Democrats know they 
cannot block these nominees from taking office. Because of the so-
called nuclear option, they reduced the voting threshold from 60 to 51, 
meaning that, with 52 Republicans and, hopefully, with a little help 
from some of our friends across the aisle, every single one of 
President Trump's Cabinet nominees will be confirmed. We can take that 
to the bank.
  All they can do, which is all they have done up to this point, is to 
slow the process down for no reason other than the fact that they can. 
Again, thanks to Senator Reid, all of the President's nominees will be 
confirmed. This type of behavior is really pretty juvenile, if you ask 
me, and it can't actually accomplish anything. It is a strategy in 
search of a goal. They don't have any particular goal in mind, because 
at the end of the day, the President will get the Cabinet that he has 
nominated and deserves.
  After the vote tomorrow on Mrs. DeVos for Cabinet Secretary of 
Education, we will vote to confirm Senator Sessions, our longstanding 
colleague, as Attorney General. In addition to him and the Education 
Secretary, we have the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the 
Secretary of Treasury, too. These, of course, are key positions in the 
new administration.
  Now, 18 days after President Trump's inauguration, he still doesn't 
have the help he needs in these critical posts. I believe this kind of 
mindless obstruction is actually irresponsible, if not downright 
dangerous. I know our Democratic colleagues said they confirmed General 
Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, and later on the Director of the CIA 
and, yes, they finally confirmed the Secretary of State. But the 
Attorney General is part of the national security Cabinet. They run a 
lot of the counterterrorism efforts for the Department of Justice.
  This is not only irresponsible, but this is, I believe, dangerous. It 
should also be an embarrassment. The American people expect their 
Senators and Congress to do our jobs and fulfill the duties to those 
who we represent. If our Democratic colleagues don't want to support 
one of the very well-qualified nominees of the President, that is fine. 
That is their right, but don't slow walk and slow down the institution 
of the Senate just to score some political points or to feed some of 
the irrational rage that you see depicted in some quarters.
  Dragging this out doesn't do any good. It won't change the outcome, 
and it ill serves the American people. Let's get these nominations done 
so they can be sworn in and begin their service to this new 
administration and, more importantly, to the American people.
  In addition to our work on nominations, last week the Senate started 
to consider a number of measures to block a host of regulations put in 
place by the Obama administration during the last 6 months that 
President Obama was in office. Under President Obama, our country 
witnessed a volcanic profusion of rules and regulations that empowered 
unelected bureaucrats and shut out the voices of the elected 
representatives of the people.
  The result? Job creators have less freedom to operate and innovate 
and are instead suffocated by more and more redtape and compliance 
costs. That translates into a slower growing economy, which means less 
jobs and which means the American people are the ones who get hurt, 
directly as a result of this profusion of redtape and regulation.
  According to recent reports, the 600-plus regulations issued by the 
Obama White House came with a $700 billion pricetag for our economy. 
Our economy is not even growing at 2 percent. I think this 
overregulation is largely responsible because this profusion of 
regulations hit businesses both big--they can absorb some matter of the 
costs--but also small businesses, including local community banks that 
are going out of business on a daily basis because they simply can't 
afford to compete and to pay for the countless lawyers to comply with 
all of the redtape and the mindless regulation from the previous 
administration. It is not just financial services. It is health care, 
it is agriculture, and it is all sectors of the economy.
  I am grateful that President Trump has made it clear where he stands 
on all of this, and he has already issued guidance requiring the 
government to cut regulations should it want to add more: Cut two 
regulations for every one you want to add. With President Trump in the 
White House, Congress can reverse many of the Obama regulations. That 
gives the American people and our anemic economic growth some relief.
  Through the Congressional Review Act, Congress can review and 
ultimately block recent regulations handed down by the Federal 
Government. That is what we did last week, and that is what we are 
going to continue to do. We can roll back many of the Obama 
administration rules that are killing jobs and stifling economic 
growth.
  At the end of last week, we repealed the rule called the stream 
buffer rule, which actually didn't have anything to do with streams. It 
was a job-killing regulation that was more about stifling domestic 
energy production, and I am glad we did away with it.
  On Friday, Congress passed another resolution--one I was happy to 
cosponsor. That was aimed at chipping away the regulatory burdens for 
our community banks and other financial services organizations brought 
on by Dodd-Frank.
  I am all for transparency, but I am against laws that give advantages 
to foreign companies over our own. This Securities and Exchange 
Commission rule would have done that by forcing American companies to 
disclose confidential information that their foreign competitors can 
keep under wraps. It should go without saying that each of us want a 
level playing field for our businesses, which help to create jobs and 
grow the economy. That is why we blocked this rule.
  Of course, this and other resolutions are the first few steps in a 
broader strategy to kill overbearing regulations so that our innovators 
and our entrepreneurs aren't suffocated by unnecessary paperwork and 
bureaucracy. That is part of what the American people sent us here to 
do. Certainly, the verdict they rendered on November 8 is that they did 
not want a continuation of the status quo under the previous 
administration. They wanted change.

[[Page 1886]]

It is integral to restoring our economy--the kind of change we are 
bringing about to restoring our economy and helping it grow for 
everyone.
  I look forward to working with the White House and with our 
colleagues as we continue to find new ways to build up the American 
economy.
  Mr. President, if I can just close on one last topic. I see some 
colleagues here wishing to speak. Tomorrow we will vote on the 
nomination of Betsy Devos to the Department of Education. The Federal 
Government, through the Department of Education, funds about 10 percent 
of public education, because most of that comes from our States; that 
is, the funding and the regulation of education from kindergarten 
through the 12th grade. What this fight over this well-qualified 
nominee is all about is power--as so many of these fights in 
Washington, DC, are about--and the desire to keep power over public 
education in all of our States and all across the country right here 
inside the beltway.
  I believe President Trump chose wisely, not because he chose another 
education bureaucrat who knows all the acronyms and knows the arcanum 
known to people who have been brought up within that establishment. 
Instead, he chose an outsider, someone much like himself but someone 
more interested in results, rather than paying homage to and feeding 
the education establishment here in Washington, DC, and retaining the 
power over the important decisions that should be handed back down to 
the States, down to teachers, parents, and students, as they choose how 
best to get to accomplish our universal goal of making sure every child 
has a good education.
  This fight isn't about the quality of education in our country. This 
fight, for those who are opposing Mrs. DeVos, is largely about whether 
we should retain power here in Washington, DC, so that Washington can 
continue to dictate to the States, parents, and teachers what policies 
they need to apply in our K-12 education system or whether we are going 
to return that power back where it should be--back into the hands of 
parents, teachers, and local school districts.
  That is what this fight is all about. That is why I am glad that 
tomorrow we will confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Listen 
to what the American people told us on November 8 when they said they 
didn't want to maintain the status quo because the status quo is not 
working for them, it is not working for our economy, and, certainly, it 
is not working for our children, each of whom deserves a good 
education.
  Yes, Mrs. DeVos will shake things up a little bit but, more 
importantly, she is going to be part of this effort to return power to 
parents and teachers and to our local school districts. That is what 
this vote will be about tomorrow.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                   Repealing and Replacing Obamacare

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to briefly discuss a number of 
ongoing efforts in the early days of the 115th Congress. It is a 
strange time to be working on Capitol Hill, as strange as I have seen 
in my four decades in the Senate. That is true for a number of reasons. 
Let me give you an example. Republicans currently control the Senate, 
the House, and the White House, and are in widespread agreement about 
most major policy issues. Sure, there are details that need to be 
worked out, both on the process and the substance on things like tax 
reform, trade, and of course health care reform, but by and large 
Republicans all have the same ultimate goals for these key areas. Yet 
despite the overwhelming consensus that exists on most of these issues, 
there seems to be an obsession with advancing a narrative of a deeply 
divided Republican majority. According to this popular narrative, House 
and Senate Republicans have completely different views on tax reform, 
Republicans in Congress oppose everything President Trump wants to do 
on trade, and Senate Republicans are deeply at odds on how to press 
forward on repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
  As chairman of the Senate committee that is right in the middle of 
all these issues, I get asked to comment on these matters, literally, 
dozens of times every day. The questions take many forms. Senator X 
says Congress should do ``blank'' with ObamaCare. What do you think? 
Can the House's tax reform plan pass in the Senate? President Trump 
said ``blank'' today. Is that going to fly in your committee?
  These questions may seem straightforward. However, the underlying 
question behind all of these lines of inquiry is: Will you publically 
disagree with or criticize another Republican so we can write another 
story about Republican divisions? Matters such as repealing and 
replacing ObamaCare or reforming the Tax Code are certainly important 
topics that are rightly under intense public scrutiny. However, given 
that these monumental efforts are still in the early stages, the fact 
that there are some relatively minor differences of opinion shouldn't 
be all that noteworthy. The existence of these differences in the 
initial stages of the process doesn't significantly jeopardize the 
success of these efforts. The purpose of the legislative process--
particularly the process we use in the Senate--is to allow differences 
to be aired and worked through so, at the end of the process, consensus 
can be reached. Differing views on some issues at the beginning of the 
process are to be expected. Once again, they are hardly noteworthy.
  Case in point, Republicans are united in our desire to repeal and 
replace ObamaCare. The vast majority of us want reforms that are more 
patient-centered and market-driven. As far as I know, pretty much all 
of us want to return most of the authority for regulating the health 
care system back to the States. On some of the other questions, let me 
make clear what my position is just so there is no confusion on these 
points. I believe we should repeal ObamaCare--including the taxes--and 
provide for a stable transition period. I believe the work to replace 
ObamaCare should also begin immediately, meaning that our repeal bill 
should include as many ObamaCare replacement policies as procedures 
allow. A more complete replacement can and should be crafted in the 
coming months as we work through some of the more complicated issues. 
That has been my position since roughly March of 2010, when the final 
pieces of ObamaCare were signed into law. I have repeated it numerous 
times over the years. Moreover, I believe most Republicans in Congress 
share that same view.
  Do some Republicans have different views regarding the proper order 
and procedure for this endeavor? I am sure they do. But I don't know of 
a single Republican who does not want to get rid of ObamaCare. I 
certainly don't know any Republicans who are fine with the status quo 
in our health care system. That being the case, no one should be trying 
to parse anyone's words or split hairs in order to manufacture 
divisions in the Republican ranks on repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
  I have little doubt that we can work through whatever differences do 
exist, and, more importantly, I think we will. I am not going to 
speculate today on the floor about what the final process or product 
will look like, but I will say that at the end of the day, only 3 
numbers matter: 218, 51 and 1. Those are the numbers of supporters we 
need at each step to pass an ObamaCare repeal and replacement.
  At this point, given what we currently know, I strongly believe that 
the process I described earlier--a full repeal and a responsible 
transition, coupled with a sizable downpayment on replacement, followed 
by a committed effort to implement additional replacement policies in 
the coming months--provides the best path forward to achieving those 
thresholds. Like I said, most Republicans in Congress agree with me.
  We can discuss other ideas, and I am happy to engage in that 
discussion, but those numbers--218, 51, and 1--have to be the standard 
by which we judge any alternatives. And while I would love to see the 
final product pass with even larger numbers, and even with some 
Democrats onboard with us, those numbers give us a clear picture as to 
how much consensus is necessary.

[[Page 1887]]

  Once again, I think we can get there, and I am continually working 
with colleagues in both the House and Senate to make sure we do.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
oppose the nomination of Betsy DeVos, President Trump's choice to be 
Secretary of Education. I fundamentally disagree with my colleague from 
Texas who said earlier that this is a fight about power and who 
maintains power, whether it is going to stay in Washington or whether 
it is going to be in our State and local communities.
  In New Hampshire, we believe in local control of education. It is a 
bedrock principle of our public education system. This fight, today, is 
not about power in Washington versus power in the States; this is a 
fight about whether we are going to continue to support our public 
school system and our system of public higher education, or are we 
going to take the money out, the support out, and divert it into 
private and religious schools, and gut the public education system in 
this country?
  My parents were part of the ``greatest generation,'' and they raised 
me in post-World War II America. They understood that the best way for 
my sisters and me to have opportunities for the future was to make sure 
we had a solid education. I benefited by going to great public schools 
in the State of Missouri and in the State of Pennsylvania, and I was 
also able to receive a quality public higher education. Without the 
opportunity to attend public universities in Pennsylvania and later in 
West Virginia and in the State of Mississippi, I would not have been 
able to get a college education because my parents wouldn't have been 
able to afford to send me to a private college or university, just like 
they wouldn't have been able to afford to send me to private K-12 
schools.
  I am grateful for the public schools I attended and proud of the 
support my parents and so many other parents have given to public 
schools across America. My children and grandchildren have benefited 
from the great public schools in New Hampshire.
  As Governor, I was proud to work with the Republican legislature to 
improve the public schools in the State of New Hampshire. We expanded 
public kindergarten in our State because at the time I became Governor, 
we didn't have public kindergarten for all students. We were able to 
open the door for an additional 25,000 kids to go to public 
kindergarten. We were able to increase funding for schools in New 
Hampshire during my time as Governor. I learned during those 
experiences and also as a teacher--I taught in public schools in Dover, 
New Hampshire and also in Mississippi--the close connection between 
quality public education and a strong, growing economy.
  I taught in Mississippi in 1970. At that time, there was no 
requirement for all young people to attend school. So if you didn't 
want to go to school, you didn't have to. We saw the negative impact 
that had on economic indicators in the State of Mississippi. Since 
then, the State has adopted compulsory education for students in 
Mississippi. But it was a great lesson to me to see how important good 
schools are and how they contribute to a strong economy in this 
country.
  As Governor, when I talked to businesses in the State of New 
Hampshire, one of the things they told me that they needed in order for 
their businesses to succeed was a skilled workforce, young people who 
had a good education, who could learn advanced skills on the job. They 
looked to locate in communities where there was a strong system of 
public education.
  I value public schools as one of our Nation's bedrock civic and 
democratic institutions because they provide the best opportunity for 
kids from all walks of life to get a quality education. They pass on to 
each new generation, including the children of immigrants, America's 
shared ideals and values.
  Regrettably, after careful study of Mrs. DeVos's record as an 
activist, I have concluded that she doesn't agree with this view of our 
public schools. She has no relevant experience as a teacher or as a 
leader in public schools. She has never attended a public school, and 
she has not sent any of her children to a public school. To the 
contrary, she has spent her entire career and countless millions of 
dollars of her personal fortune working not to improve public schools 
but to privatize them, to weaken them by diverting public funds to 
private and religious schools. Given her past record, it makes no sense 
to put Mrs. DeVos in charge of the Department of Education unless the 
aim is to devalue, defund, and perhaps eventually destroy our public 
schools. I think that is unacceptable.
  In my State of New Hampshire, support for our public schools is 
bipartisan and it is passionate. In rural communities and small towns 
and our cities across the State, public schools are institutions that 
have strong support within our communities. They are a big part of our 
communities' identities and shared experiences. Across centuries and 
generations in the Granite State, public schools have been at the heart 
of our common civic life.
  I think it is not surprising that my office has been inundated with 
letters, emails, and phone calls strongly opposing the DeVos 
nomination. My office has received more than 4,000 letters and emails 
from Granite Staters. That may not seem like a lot to somebody from the 
State of California, but from the State of New Hampshire, to have 4,000 
letters and emails on a nomination is unheard of. And almost all of 
them oppose this nomination. In addition, we have received 1,405 
telephone calls in opposition and only 3 in support. I am impressed not 
only by the volume of constituent messages but by the intensity of 
their opposition.
  Megan is a social studies teacher in New Hampshire. She writes:

       Mrs. DeVos clearly lacks even a basic understanding of 
     Federal education policy, laws and instructional practices. 
     She has no relevant experience. There is just no way I would 
     ever be certified to instruct students in New Hampshire if I 
     lacked as much knowledge and experience in my field. But she 
     gets to be the nation's chief educator? How is this good for 
     kids?

  Roger is a retired public school teacher from the central part of my 
State, and he writes:

       Please reject DeVos because she is anti-public education in 
     word and in practice, lacking the understanding of the public 
     education system and having no understanding of the dreamers 
     sitting in public schools this morning, creating their own 
     American dreams, learning of the promise and justice that is 
     America.

  Sam from our Seacoast region writes:

       It is important that we maintain a strong public school 
     system. This is not a partisan issue. Any person, regardless 
     of party, can see that Miss DeVos is unqualified to fill the 
     position. You need to vote ``no'' to save our education 
     system.

  Mike from one of our university towns writes:

       I am really concerned that we might have someone with so 
     little experience in education and with seemingly anti-public 
     education views as our next education leader. I fear that a 
     DeVos confirmation will only exacerbate the already 
     segregated school experiences that children have in our 
     country. I want all students to have a fair shake at a high-
     quality school experience, not just those who live in wealthy 
     communities or who have parents savvy enough to advocate on 
     their behalf.

  Many of the letters I have received are from parents who are outraged 
by Mrs. DeVos's comments on the Individuals with Disabilities Education 
Act, which is one of the landmark civil rights laws of the 20th 
century. In response to a question from my colleague, Senator Hassan, 
Mrs. DeVos made it clear that she was unaware that that law was a 
Federal law and that it governs all our public schools in the United 
States.
  IDEA ensures that children with disabilities have the opportunity to 
receive a free appropriate public education and that they are 
accommodated in our schools and classrooms, just like all other 
children. In her testimony, Mrs. DeVos said that decisions about how to 
treat students with disabilities should be left to the States. Can you 
imagine? What would happen in States that decide they don't want to 
make sure that those students can go to school?

[[Page 1888]]

  I received this message from Marilyn, who lives in the western part 
of New Hampshire. She says:

       Thank you for opposing the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as 
     Education Secretary. She is a dangerous, unqualified choice. 
     As the parent of a daughter with Down syndrome, I fear for 
     the future of IDEA if DeVos is in charge.

  Ashley Preston, who was the Teacher of the Year in New Hampshire in 
2016, wrote this to me:

       If our Secretary of Education does not understand and value 
     the importance of Federal laws such as IDEA, how can we 
     expect states and local school districts to do that? These 
     are the elements crucial to ensuring the best chance for our 
     future.

  Mr. President, the Department of Education has oversight not only of 
K-12 public schools but also higher education, including a portfolio of 
more than $1.2 trillion in Federal student loans. I have had the 
opportunity not only to teach in our K-12 schools but to work in public 
universities in New Hampshire and in private universities. Listening to 
Mrs. DeVos's testimony, I was appalled by her lack of understanding of 
higher education policy. She acknowledged that neither she nor her 
children had ever received a Federal loan or Pell grant. And this is 
the worst part: When asked to commit to enforcing rules that ensure 
students are not cheated and end up with no degree but a mountain of 
student debt--in other words, the predicament of students who went to 
Trump University and so many other for-profit colleges--she refused to 
do that. She refused to say that this is something that we should 
support as a policy in America.
  I am also deeply concerned by her support for charter schools that 
are not accountable and her reputation as ``the four-star general of 
the voucher movement.'' I believe there is a role for charter schools. 
I think as we try to improve our public system of higher education, we 
need to look at a number of models. I voted for New Hampshire's charter 
school law, but we should hold them accountable just as we hold our 
public schools accountable. We should ensure that they do not drain 
resources from public schools.
  There was a report that came out in 2013 that was done by a working 
group under the auspices of the Annenberg Institute for Social Reform. 
They uncovered similar challenges across charter schools. They found 
that there was uneven academic performance; that some of them had 
overly harsh discipline practices; that funding sometimes destabilized 
traditional schools; that there was a lack of transparency and 
oversight that led to conflicts of interest and, in some cases, fraud; 
and that many of them practiced policies that kept students out for 
various reasons.
  Mrs. DeVos was one of the architects of Michigan's first charter 
school law in 1993. It has been widely criticized for lacking 
accountability and safeguards for students. In her confirmation 
hearing, Mrs. DeVos refused to agree that for-profit charter schools 
should be held to the same standards as public schools. Just as 
disturbing is her support for school vouchers, which would siphon 
funding from public schools and divert it to private and religious 
schools.
  Advocates of vouchers like to call it school choice, but, in 
practice, parents have learned that choice is not a reality. Florida, 
under Governor Jeb Bush, was the first State to enact a statewide 
voucher system, and nearly 93 percent of private and parochial schools 
in Florida--after that law--refused to accept any voucher students.
  In New Hampshire, we have parts of the State where, if we don't have 
public schools, there are no other choices for our students. I don't 
care whether you have a voucher or not. You can't drive 3 or 4 hours to 
get to the closest private school.
  So let's be clear: Vouchers and other privatization schemes advocated 
by Mrs. DeVos are not about pedagogy; they are about ideology. They are 
all about disdain for what many voucher advocates like to call 
government schools. Well, what they call government schools are our 
public schools. They are schools that our communities have created and 
control locally for the education of their kids.
  What Mrs. DeVos fails to understand is that quality education has 
nothing do with whether a school is public or private. We have public 
schools in New Hampshire that can do better, and we have public schools 
that are world class. The same can be said about our private schools in 
New Hampshire. But what counts in public and private schools alike are 
high-quality teachers, support from parents and communities, facilities 
where kids can learn and be safe, rigorous academic standards, and the 
resources to make sure that children get the instruction they need, 
including individualized assistance for kids with special needs. What 
counts is the political and budgetary commitment to create high-quality 
schools in every neighborhood, regardless of ZIP Code. Because Betsy 
DeVos does not understand these basic truths about education in 
America, because she is driven by an ideological hostility to our 
public schools, she is the wrong person to serve as our Secretary of 
Education.
  I intend to vote no on the nomination of Mrs. DeVos, and I urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in rejecting this 
unqualified nominee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in opposition to the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. My reason is very 
simple: Mrs. DeVos lacks the experience required to oversee the 
Department of Education, an agency that serves over 50 million public 
school children across America.
  Despite spending many years giving hundreds of millions of dollars to 
back political candidates and ballot initiatives that support unproven 
education policies, she remains shockingly unfamiliar with Federal law 
and even some very basic education concepts. Educating our children is 
an incredibly important job, and we need someone who is experienced, 
prepared, and well qualified to lead the Department of Education.
  As I have said before, Mrs. DeVos has no experience in public 
education at any level, not as a teacher, not as an administrator, not 
as a student, not as a parent, not as a school board member, and not 
even as a borrower of public loans for college.
  Ask any parent; our children are what we hold most dear. It only 
makes sense that the individual whom we entrust with our children's 
education should have at least some--some--experience in public 
education. Mrs. DeVos has absolutely no experience--I repeat, no 
tangible experience--with neighborhood public schools. In fact, her 
only experience in education is her work lobbying for the transfer of 
taxpayer money to private schools.
  She has also pushed for the rapid expansion of charter schools 
without sufficient accountability to parents and to students, which 
brings me to her track record in my home State of Michigan. Mrs. DeVos 
has pushed for school vouchers to send our public tax dollars to 
private schools. Her staunch advocacy for the use of taxpayer funding 
for private and charter school systems earned her the nickname as the 
``four-star general of the pro-voucher movement.''
  The vast majority of children in Michigan and in the United States 
attend neighborhood public schools. Voucher programs rob these children 
of the resources they need to receive high-quality education near where 
they live. Michigan voters soundly rejected her plan, and we cannot--I 
repeat, we cannot--put her in a position to push for voucher programs 
on a national scale that will weaken our neighborhood schools and will 
weaken, in particular, our rural schools.
  Let me be clear: I support innovative models for improving our 
education system but only when those models are proven to work. For 
example, I worked hard to ensure that all children have access to the 
skills and education that are vital to joining the modern workforce and 
competing in today's global economy. I introduced legislation that will 
reduce the price tag for higher learning by allowing students to 
complete college-level courses while they are still in public high 
school.

[[Page 1889]]

  The Making Education Affordable and Accessible Act will help students 
save time and money as they kick-start their careers through a very 
personalized curriculum. Whether an early-middle college program or a 
dual and concurrent enrollment program, these models help traditional 
public school students save money and get ahead by earning college 
credits while they finish their high school education.
  These programs are typically run by a local school district or an 
intermediate school district and are offered at little or no cost to 
the student. They also help students identify their major or interest 
area sooner so that they can complete their college degree and graduate 
as much as 1 year earlier. Across the State of Michigan, students are 
participating in more than 90 early and middle college programs, 
programs that are proven to significantly increase high school 
graduation rates.
  Jobs for the Future found that, nationally, 90 percent of early 
college students graduate high school versus 78 percent nationally. 
This is just one example of the kind of innovative approach with proven 
results that policymakers should support to improve education outcomes.
  Education reform must be driven by data and validated outcomes and 
not by political ideology. Our primary focus must always be on 
increasing opportunities for the millions of students in our 
neighborhood public schools. Given Mrs. DeVos's history of supporting 
policies that undermine traditional public schools and the communities 
they serve, I do not think she would act in the best interests of 
American students.
  Michigan has been devoted to great public education for generations, 
a commitment that stretches back to even before the founding of our 
State. Some of our State's earliest pioneers, including my ancestors, 
settled under the guidance of the Northwest Ordinance, which stated 
that ``schools and the means of education shall forever be 
encouraged.'' Our Nation has strived to live up to this creed ever 
since, honoring the fundamental truth that all of our children have the 
right to an education no matter who they are, where they live, how much 
money their parents have, or how they learn.
  All levels of government--State, local and Federal--share the 
responsibility of ensuring that our children have access to quality 
education. In addition to providing significant Federal dollars to 
local school districts, the Federal Government plays a critical role in 
preventing discrimination and creating opportunity.
  Federal education laws play a vital roll in ensuring that all 
students have equal access to learning opportunities, laws like the 
landmark 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
  Before the enactment of IDEA, too many of our children with 
disabilities were denied the chance to learn from our broader 
communities. Likewise, our broader communities were denied the chance 
to learn from these youth and the extraordinary perspectives and 
contributions they offer to American society.
  Now, thanks to IDEA, 6.5 million of our children, or 13 percent of 
all public school students, are not condemned to a life of isolation or 
mere accommodation. Instead, Federal law ensures that every child has 
access to the resources he or she needs to become productive and 
included members of our increasingly diverse 21st-century society.
  IDEA assists public schools with offering high-quality special 
education and early intervention services for children with 
disabilities from birth to age 21. As a result, IDEA is responsible for 
millions of youth with disabilities graduating from high school, 
enrolling in college, and finding jobs as valuable participants in the 
American economy.
  But IDEA will not enforce itself; it is the responsibility of the 
Department of Education and its leadership to monitor, evaluate, and 
provide technical assistance to States, making sure that our schools 
are offering learning opportunities that meet every student's needs.
  It is the responsibility of the Senate to determine whether Mrs. 
DeVos can carry out this task and live up to the creed of ``forever 
encouraging'' education. Unfortunately, Mrs. DeVos has demonstrated 
little comprehension of the Federal role in protecting students with 
disabilities' equal right to an education. This became evident when she 
was asked directly about IDEA during her confirmation hearing, and Mrs. 
DeVos tried to excuse her erroneous answer by saying, ``I may have 
confused it.'' Every student knows the importance of doing their 
homework, studying for their exams, and practicing for any class 
presentations in advance. Every educator knows that the answer ``I may 
have confused it'' is not a response that leads to a passing grade.
  With the stakes as high as they are, it is clear that Mrs. DeVos did 
not do her homework. She did not study for her potential role. She did 
not practice for her interview with the Senate committee and, most 
importantly, the American people. She has contributed millions of 
dollars to Republican politicians over the years and probably thought 
that was the only qualification that she needed. We need to prove to 
the American people that she is wrong.
  I take my responsibility under the U.S. Constitution to provide 
advise and consent to the President very seriously, and I know my 
colleagues here in the Senate do so as well. Given Mrs. DeVos's weak 
performance in her interview before the American people and her 
inability to demonstrate a basic understanding of key education 
concepts, I do not think we can give her a passing grade.
  As Senators, we do not operate under a model of social promotion 
under which we pass an unqualified individual to a higher office simply 
because they showed up. Perhaps this is why Mrs. DeVos's nomination is 
expected to see the most bipartisan opposition to her confirmation of 
all of the President's nominations to date.
  Mrs. DeVos's response regarding IDEA during her confirmation hearing 
was not the only response that I found alarming. As the father of two 
college-age daughters, I am extremely concerned about ensuring that our 
college campuses provide safe environments where students can learn and 
grow.
  I was shocked by a recent comprehensive report done by one school 
that found that over 20 percent of female undergraduates experienced 
unwanted sexual contact. Sadly, this problem is not confined to one 
school. It is a public safety and health crisis that we must 
immediately take action to address.
  The Department of Education has taken important first steps to combat 
the prevalence of campus sexual assault by opening investigations in 
over 200 schools and publishing guidance to ensure that universities 
are affording students title IX protections, the freedom from 
discrimination on the basis of sex and freedom from sexual violence.
  Mrs. DeVos apparently has a different reaction to the threats many 
young students face while pursuing their higher education. As we saw 
during her confirmation hearing, she said it is ``premature'' for her 
to say if she will choose to uphold the Department of Education's 
guidance on preventing sexual violence. This is completely unacceptable 
to me as a Senator representing over 500,000 undergraduate students 
attending one of Michigan's outstanding colleges and universities, and 
this is completely unacceptable to me as a father.
  It is also unacceptable in the eyes of over 1,000 graduates of the 
same school in Michigan that Mrs. DeVos attended herself: Calvin 
College. Calvin College alumni from the class of 1947 to the class of 
2020 sent my office an extensive petition expressing their deep concern 
with Mrs. DeVos's nomination. In their letter, these alumni presented 
several reasons they oppose Mrs. DeVos's confirmation. Specifically, 
they expressed concerns that she does not understand or support the 
many Federal policies--like IDEA and title IX--that she would be 
required to enforce. They wrote: ``This is especially concerning given 
that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and title IX, 
which ensure that all students' educational experiences are free of 
discrimination

[[Page 1890]]

that impede learning, are not of value to Mrs. DeVos.'' I cannot agree 
more with her fellow alumni.
  My office has received over 8,000 calls in opposition to the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos, and I am sure my colleagues have also heard 
from thousands of their own constituents all across this country. The 
American people are making their voices heard, and they are telling the 
Senate that Mrs. DeVos is not the right choice to lead the Department 
of Education. I urge my colleagues to listen to their constituents who 
are forcefully--forcefully--rejecting Mrs. DeVos's misguided vision for 
neighborhood public schools in America.
  I will be standing with the people of Michigan, and I once again call 
on my colleagues to join the bipartisan opposition to Mrs. DeVos's 
nomination. Our children's future depends on it, and for their sake, 
please vote no.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I believe Betsy DeVos is going to be an 
excellent Secretary of Education.


                      Nomination of Jeff Sessions

  Mr. President, I have been fortunate enough to get to know Jeff 
Sessions over the past 20 years. Not only is he a colleague whom I 
admire and respect, he is also one of my very best friends. I actually 
suffered through with him back when he had a nomination that was 
rejected by this body many years ago.
  As you know, Senator Sessions has been nominated by the President to 
be the next Attorney General of the United States. It is an incredible 
honor. There is no doubt in my mind that my friend will be perfect for 
the job. He is more than qualified for this position, and I know he 
will keep his word when he says he plans to uphold the laws we pass in 
Congress.
  Senator Sessions was elected to the Senate in 1997. That was 2 years 
after I was elected, and we have been very close friends ever since. 
For 20 years now, we have known each other and worked alongside each 
other on both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Environment 
and Public Works Committee. Those are the two major committees we have 
been on. He is seated just to my right in each one of the committees, 
and, as the Chair knows, you get to know a person pretty well when you 
have been sitting there for these 3- or 4-hour-long meetings. So we 
have had that relationship with each other.
  Not only have we worked together, but we have also traveled and 
prayed together. You really get to know someone when you work, travel, 
and pray together. When working, a person's mind is revealed; when 
traveling, a person's character is revealed; and when you pray, the 
person's heart is revealed. I have come to know Senator Sessions as a 
God-fearing family man who puts others before himself and has a deep 
respect for the rule of law.
  Family man--every time he has a grandchild, his wife and my wife talk 
about our competing grandchildren.
  He helps those in need and makes sure that the legal system is 
protecting our citizens and holding criminals accountable.
  A person only needs to look at the legislation and causes he has 
championed to know him. He played a key role in fighting for fairness 
and funding for the rural HIV/AIDS patients when negotiating a 
reauthorization of the bipartisan Ryan White CARE Act. His advocacy 
brought funding to low-income, mostly African-American women who did 
not have easily accessible health care before. Senator Sessions has 
been an author and supporter of many pieces of bipartisan legislation, 
including protecting victims of child abuse, reducing prison sentences 
for those who are unfairly targeted, and helping the families of our 
fallen military personnel.
  As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Sessions 
has become a fierce advocate for keeping our country safe from 
terrorism, and he understands the risks we face. In fact, Senator 
Sessions is tough on crime and is well suited to oversee Federal law 
enforcement activities and to assist local governments in their 
efforts.
  Violent crime has recently been increasing. Furthermore--and I just 
found this out--the shooting deaths of police officers has increased by 
68 percent just in the last year, between 2015 and 2016. That is pretty 
remarkable. These trends are unacceptable, and Senator Sessions has 
pledged to reverse the course by strengthening the partnership between 
Federal and local law enforcement and by going after drug traffickers, 
aliens who violate the laws, and criminals who use guns to commit 
crimes.
  There is no question that Senator Sessions is qualified to do what he 
says he will and what the job asks of him. He served as a U.S. attorney 
for Alabama's Southern District, and he was also Alabama's attorney 
general, so he clearly knows the job. He doesn't have to be trained. It 
is because of his previous experiences that he will be able to 
transition from a partisan legislator to our Nation's top law 
enforcement officer with great ease.
  Countless groups of people have come out to support the nominee: the 
Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, former 
U.S. attorneys, a former FBI Director, current State attorneys general, 
and many more. All of the law enforcement professionals are behind him, 
and there is a reason for it: It is because that is his record, and 
people are aware of it.
  So I would like to take a minute to point out that it is cruel and 
unfair that people have tried to paint a picture of Senator Sessions as 
someone and something he is not. I think this is something that needs 
to be said.
  The man the opposition has painted does not exist. You all know Jeff 
Sessions. You know that the awful things being said about him are 
completely false. In fact, back in 1981, the Ku Klux Klan ordered the 
tragic, extremely undeserved murder of a young African-American man by 
the name of Michael Donald. Because of Senator Sessions's help and 
support, these Klan members were convicted and given either life 
sentences or the death penalty. That is Jeff Sessions. Furthermore, he 
later played a major role in the destruction of the Ku Klux Klan in 
Alabama when he helped bring a civil suit against them. As a result, 
the KKK went bankrupt, and he caused them to fall apart in that region. 
Again, those were Jeff Sessions' efforts.
  Before we vote on the confirmation of our friend and colleague, I ask 
that you all take a moment to seriously reflect how Senator Sessions 
has worked diligently with you over the past two decades and how 
perfectly qualified he is for this position.
  As for me, I thank him for his tireless efforts in Congress, for his 
friendship, and for his fellowship. He will go down as one of the truly 
great U.S. Attorneys General in this country's history.
  Mr. President, there are a lot of other nominees whom I have gotten 
to know. I had an experience of actually going to Trump Tower and 
getting to know some of the people who advise him. As I looked around 
the table, I saw people who were the right kind of people in health 
care, the right kind of people in energy, and the right kind of people 
in the military to give him advice in areas he might not have been 
exposed to in the past.
  And I just noticed that it has been very slow. I was not aware of 
this until a few minutes ago, that apparently the Cabinet confirmations 
are the slowest since George Washington. This is something that is 
really wrong. You can criticize someone, but after a while, you just go 
ahead and you know the votes are there, and you make sure that you go 
ahead and do it.


                       Nomination of Neil Gorsuch

  Mr. President, I would say this to the Presiding Officer, since he 
and I are both from Oklahoma, which is in the Tenth Circuit: Last week 
President Trump announced that he was nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch of 
the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to be a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. 
As someone who had been following the news and rumors of who the pick 
would be--I had been looking into potential nominees for weeks--I was 
pleased to see Judge Gorsuch's name come up because we know something 
about him.

[[Page 1891]]

  After the untimely death of Justice Scalia a year ago, it was clear 
that the Presidential election would be about the direction of the 
Supreme Court for the next generation or maybe even generations. With 
the results of the election--the Republican President and Republican 
Congress--the American people have entrusted us to confirm a Supreme 
Court Justice who will adhere to the rule of law and will not try to 
read between the lines when interpreting legislation or the 
Constitution. With the selection of Judge Gorsuch, I believe President 
Trump has picked such a Justice. The President might not know or 
remember, but George W. Bush nominated Judge Gorsuch to his current 
position, and the Senate confirmed him unanimously by voice vote. We 
went back and looked at the record, and no one voted against him.
  There is no question that Judge Gorsuch is qualified for the Supreme 
Court. He is a graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Law School, and 
Oxford. He clerked for Judge Sentelle of the U.S. court of appeals for 
the D.C. Circuit. He clerked for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and 
Anthony Kennedy, so he knows the job. There is no need for on-the-job 
training for him.
  He has been in private practice. He has been a principal deputy to 
the Associate Attorney General and Acting Attorney General at the U.S. 
Department of Justice.
  Much like the Justice he has been nominated to replace, Judge Gorsuch 
has become known for his writing style. One of his former law clerks 
said that his ``favorite aspect of the judge's writing is his ability 
to humanize disputes.''
  It appears that Gorsuch has more in common with the late Justice 
Scalia than just writing abilities. He has said that ``assiduous focus 
on text, structure, and history is essential to the proper exercise of 
the judicial function.'' That judicial philosophy has been borne out in 
his record on the Tenth Circuit.
  My home State of Oklahoma is within the Tenth Circuit jurisdiction, 
so we know him very well. Oklahoma is the home of Hobby Lobby. Everyone 
is familiar with what Hobby Lobby is. A lot of people don't realize 
this, but it started out when I was in the State legislature. The 
Greens, who have Hobby Lobby, started out in their garage. At that 
time, they were putting together things that they could frame--
miniature picture frames and that type of thing. With a loan of $600, 
David and Barbara Green began making miniature picture frames.
  Today, Hobby Lobby is the largest privately owned arts and crafts 
store in the world, with over 700 stores in all but three States. They 
are people of faith, and when they were facing fines under ObamaCare 
for not providing certain insurance coverage that violated their faith, 
they were faced with an impossible choice. They took it to court, 
risking millions of personal dollars in doing so.
  In siding with Hobby Lobby against ObamaCare's contraceptive mandate, 
Judge Gorsuch stressed the point that it is not for a court to decide 
whether the owners' religious convictions are correct or consistent, 
but instead the court's role is ``only to protect the exercise of 
faith,'' and the Supreme Court agreed.
  Again, Judge Gorsuch defended the religious beliefs of the Little 
Sisters of the Poor in his dissent of the Tenth Circuit's refusal to 
rehear their case against the Obama administration regarding the same 
mandate that Hobby Lobby was contesting.
  Time and again, Judge Gorsuch has defended religious expressions in 
public space. In addition to defending the First Amendment protections 
regarding the free exercise of religion, he is also skeptical of the 
idea that agencies should be given a wide latitude when interpreting 
statutory language. In a recent opinion, Judge Gorsuch suggested that 
the precedent of the judiciary to give deference to agencies on 
statutory interpretations limits the courts when reviewing the legality 
of agency actions. Gorsuch believes it is for Congress to write the 
laws, the executive to carry them out, and the judiciary to interpret 
them, just as our Founding Fathers intended.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to move Judge Gorsuch's 
nomination forward. He is going to be confirmed, and he will make a 
great Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, before my colleague from Oklahoma leaves 
the floor, while we disagree on this current debate in terms of voting, 
I just have to say when I see him that I constantly thank him for his 
efforts last year to work with us for the community of Flint. We are 
finding some hope in terms of replacing and addressing the lead 
contamination, and without the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, 
that literally would not have happened. We have things we disagree on 
and agree on, and this one--coming together with the families of Flint, 
particularly with the children and the water impacts--he will always 
have a warm place in the hearts of all of us who care deeply about that 
issue. I thank my colleague very much.
  Mr. President, I want to speak today about the nomination of Betsy 
DeVos. Betsy DeVos's nomination is very personal to many people who 
live in Michigan because Betsy DeVos is from Michigan, and her vision 
of education and her actions have unfortunately played a major role in 
undermining our public schools.
  Families all across our State can tell the story of her work with 
Michigan schools firsthand because they have seen it firsthand. They 
have lived it firsthand. They all say the same thing. Democrats, 
Republicans, Independents, people who live in cities that are big and 
small, parents and teachers, principals, and community leaders from 
across the State--overwhelmingly, they have told me that Betsy DeVos 
should not be our next Secretary of Education.
  Everywhere I go, I can't believe how people will stop me about this 
and how strongly people feel in Michigan about this. They are saying 
this because, among other things, she has pushed for policies that have 
made charter schools in Michigan less accountable and has taken dollars 
away from public schools where the vast majority of children get their 
education. These are policies that have hurt our children and put their 
futures at risk.
  I have received so many emails and phone calls from people involved 
every which way; at the grocery store, out at public events, people 
come up to me. I just want to share a couple of e-mails.
  Chris is a teacher from Harper Woods and worked as a teacher in the 
Detroit public schools for over 20 years. He wrote: Betsy DeVos 
believes in school privatization and vouchers. She has worked to 
undermine efforts to regulate Michigan charters, even when they clearly 
fail. The marketplace solutions of DeVos will destroy our 
democratically governed community schools. Her hostility toward public 
education disqualifies her.
  Those were Chris's comments.
  In Michigan last year, State legislators put together a bipartisan 
plan, and our State legislature--House and Senate--majority is 
Republican. They put together a bipartisan plan to increase both 
funding and accountability for Detroit public schools.
  There are a lot of wonderful things happening in Detroit. Businesses 
are coming back to Detroit, and economic development is also, but we 
have major work to do for our children and their schools. So there was 
a huge bipartisan effort that came together to increase funding and 
accountability for the public schools, including charter schools. It 
was a commonsense proposal. Betsy DeVos led the effort to stop it, 
particularly the part that brought critically needed public 
accountability for for-profit and nonprofit charter schools.
  Unfortunately, right now in Michigan we have a system where anyone 
can apply to open a charter school. There are no statewide standards 
for revoking the charter, and taxpayer money is sent to them with 
virtually no public disclosure requirement. For example, we have for-
profit charter management companies that say they are private 
businesses; therefore, even though they are getting public money,

[[Page 1892]]

they say they are private businesses, and they should not have to 
comply with a series of disclosure requirements regarding teachers and 
other information that, frankly, parents would want to know and 
taxpayers have a right to know.
  Thirty-eight percent of charters in Michigan are at the bottom 25 
percent of the schools in our State. When you look at the bottom one-
fourth, 38 percent of the charters are in that category, and there is 
unfortunately very little accountability for their performance.
  Sadly, precious taxpayer dollars have been taken away from public 
schools--neighborhood schools--to fund these charters. When it comes to 
funding for public schools, she will not commit to protecting the 
critical Federal dollars that serve our children.
  One mom, Hillary Young from Detroit, came to Washington to watch the 
confirmation hearing on Betsy DeVos in the HELP Committee. She wrote to 
me. She said that she was not impressed and told a group of parents 
afterwards: As a parent I can't stand silently and watch other children 
be subject to similar circumstances to my child in Detroit. My sixth 
grader was without a math teacher for over half the year last year 
because of funding reductions. The effect of DeVos's policies is not 
parents voting with their feet to go to better schools; it is children 
bearing the burden for fixing the education system they are supposed to 
be served by.
  She goes on to say: DeVos's free market school choice system has left 
our city's education landscape in chaos, leaving less choice, less 
quality, and even more government bureaucracy.
  We have seen parents get involved and speak out all across Michigan 
and, frankly, all across the country. I have received more mail, more 
emails, more phone calls on this nominee than any other, and I have 
received a lot on a lot of nominees, but there is a broad outcry.
  People like Kathleen, who is a farmer and a grandmother from 
Farmington Hills, wrote to me: We have 15 grandchildren who are in the 
public school system, and we are terrified that there will be no more 
public schools and that the quality will be far inferior to charter and 
other private schools. I am writing you to respectfully ask that you do 
not vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.
  I am deeply concerned about what we heard in committee about her 
views on special education. In the HELP Committee hearing last week, 
she suggested that States should decide on whether or not to enforce 
IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Act that has been such a 
landmark, opening doors of schools in every neighborhood across our 
country, for children with disabilities. This law was enacted in 1975, 
and makes sure that children with disabilities have the same 
educational opportunities as other children.
  My nephew Barry, who has now gone through the special education 
system in Michigan, is a wonderful young man with Down syndrome. And I 
have seen personally how important that was for him, to be able to go 
on and be successful in the community as a part of the community. It is 
a very important civil right, frankly, for children with disabilities, 
as well as an essential part of our educational system.
  Betsy DeVos, after her hearing, when she was asked about special 
education, followed up with a letter days later and wrote about 
expanding the conversation about school choice opportunities for 
parents of children with disabilities, but she didn't say anything 
about helping those in traditional public schools or helping students 
in the schools they are in now.
  For me, this is not about politics or partisan messaging or even 
charters or private schools versus traditional public schools; it 
really is about what is best for our children and for our country. 
Families in Michigan and all across the country know this. Tens of 
thousands of people have called me over the last few weeks and sent 
emails and letters. Who we choose to be the Secretary of Education 
doesn't just affect the over 50 million children who attend public 
elementary and secondary schools, it affects the future of our country, 
and it is a fundamental difference in views. A competitive free market 
system, with winners and losers, works in the private marketplace. I 
support that. Business is open. They compete, and if they don't do 
well, they close, or they do very well and they go on and they grow. 
That is a strength in our country. But it doesn't work for educating 
our children because we can't afford losers. We can't afford losers 
when it comes to something as basic as fundamental education and 
creating opportunity for our children in the future. We need to provide 
every opportunity for every child to work hard and succeed.
  I support having choices. I support magnet schools and public 
charters--I did that as a State Senator--as well as other choices that 
are great opportunities for children, if there are equal standards and 
public accountability for taxpayers' dollars so that parents can have 
confidence in that accountability, and if it is part of the public 
school system, the public process, and only if they are in addition to 
quality neighborhood schools in every neighborhood and in every ZIP 
Code. It is not just a slogan to say it shouldn't matter where you 
live, what kind of opportunity you get or that your child has, and that 
is becoming more and more true. It certainly is in Michigan, where this 
philosophy has been a test case, and we are seeing it across the 
country. We can't afford losers. A winners-and-losers system is not 
good enough for our kids.
  Betsy DeVos has a record of working against the vision of 
accountability and standards and choice within a system where every 
child has a quality neighborhood school in their neighborhood in every 
ZIP Code. She has worked against that vision. She doesn't believe in 
it. We have fundamental differences in what will help our children for 
the future. That is why I will be voting no on her confirmation.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to thank my friend 
the Senator from Michigan for her comments and her views on this 
nominee.
  I rise today to add my voice to those expressing concern about the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education. The 
chorus of concerns not only comes from those colleagues who have 
already come to the floor last week or earlier today or throughout the 
evening and into tomorrow morning, but it also comes from literally 
tens of thousands of my constituents who have contacted me about Mrs. 
DeVos. I have been flooded with phone calls, emails, and social media 
messages from Virginians all across the Commonwealth, in many ways, in 
numbers that I haven't seen since the debate about the ACA. These 
Virginians worry about Mrs. DeVos's confirmation. They worry about what 
it would mean for our children, our students, and for progress toward 
improving and providing every child with a quality public education 
regardless of their ZIP Code.
  Like many of my colleagues, I bring to the debate some direct 
experience as both a State and local elected official. I had the great 
honor of serving as Governor of Virginia. I was responsible in that job 
for how we were preparing our students for success in college and in 
the workforce. I took that responsibility very personally.
  As somebody who attended good public schools all of my life, as 
somebody who was lucky enough to be the first in my family to graduate 
from college, I realized that I wouldn't have been able to have been 
Governor or, for that matter, obviously, Senator without that 
foundation I received from my education. Those public schools--and I 
had the opportunity to go to public schools in three different States 
growing up, and many of those public school teachers were the folks who 
framed my views about government, about our system, about how we 
actually get through in life.
  I believe in many ways public schools and the whole notion of public 
education really form the cornerstone of what is the social contract in 
America--that getting that basic public education is the right of all 
individuals.

[[Page 1893]]

When I think back on everything I was able to accomplish as Virginia's 
Governor, the validation I valued the most was that when I left the 
Governor's office in 2006, Virginia was consistently recognized by 
independent validators as the Nation's best State for a lifetime of 
educational opportunity from pre-K to college and beyond.
  So as someone who is committed to reforming and looking at how we can 
make sure our public education can work for all, as someone who spent a 
career before in business and tried working in a philanthropic sense on 
how we could expand educational opportunities, I believe I bring some 
experience to this debate. That is why I stand here today unable to 
support the nomination of Betsy DeVos to serve as Secretary of 
Education.
  To put it simply, Mrs. DeVos's single-minded focus on charter 
schools, on vouchers, and on converting Federal education dollars into 
a different program is simply out of step with the education climate in 
the Commonwealth of Virginia. Let me make clear that I have supported 
public charter schools. I believe they are a tool that ought to be in 
the toolkit. I have taken on those forces who stand for simply no 
reform in education. But I am unconvinced that Mrs. DeVos's complete 
setting of different priorities at the Federal level is in the best 
interest of our students, our teachers, or our public schools. That is 
exactly what I have been hearing from constituents all over the State, 
and I would like to very briefly share some of those concerns I have 
heard.
  Laura from my hometown of Alexandria writes this:

       While many of our . . . President's cabinet picks worry me, 
     none worry me more than Betsy DeVos for Secretary of 
     Education.

  She says:

       I come from rural Appalachia, where [I] worked my way 
     through public school in one of the poorest counties in the 
     country, but that didn't stop me from ending up here in 
     Northern Virginia working for the intelligence community.
       In areas like my hometown, where public schools are the 
     only option, they become the lifeblood of a community. . . . 
     On limited resources, our high school had to get creative 
     about how to provide for the students, often partnering with 
     the local university. But shutting the school down in favor 
     of charters, or adding a for-profit alternative, definitely 
     wasn't an option in my low-income area.

  Another letter from a school administrator from the Shenandoah Valley 
says this:

       At her confirmation hearing it was quite clear she had no 
     knowledge of instruction, curriculum, federal programs and--
     most disturbing--had no understanding of the federal laws 
     that are in place to protect children with disabilities.
       It is a serious business to educate children, and the 
     consequences are huge if we do it wrong.

  Another comment--and again, these are just samples of thousands--is 
from Olivia, a teacher in Williamsburg, who shared this:

       I see so much potential in my students every day, and I 
     feel very energetic as a young teacher about the 
     opportunities that I know our public schools are providing 
     already--and are capable of providing in the future.

  She said:

       I am concerned for my LGBT students, low-income students, 
     and for the future of myself and my colleagues as public 
     school educators trying to do good for our students.

  I have received thousands of similar heartfelt messages from every 
corner of Virginia. I welcome this level of public attention and 
citizen engagement.
  Sometimes, as the President's nominees have come forward, I voted for 
many of them, much to the consternation of some folks. But it is my job 
to weigh, regardless of that public opinion, what I think is best for 
students in Virginia and, for that matter, students across the country.
  With this outpouring from teachers, parents, students, 
administrators, civil rights groups, charter school proponents and 
opponents, and from both sides of the political aisle, I believe it 
does weigh. That is what I have done. I have listened to my 
constituents, but more importantly, I have listened to Mrs. DeVos's own 
words before the Senate HELP Committee, and let me say that I still 
have a lot of unresolved questions after reviewing Mrs. DeVos's 
testimony.
  For starters, Mrs. DeVos did not demonstrate that she understood the 
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. She didn't 
understand that it is actually a Federal law passed by Congress and 
signed by President George H.W. Bush, contrary to the impression Mrs. 
DeVos seemed to have at her confirmation hearing, saying that somehow 
complying with IDEA was simply a voluntary measure. That is not right, 
it is not the law, and, boy oh boy, did that frighten a whole lot of 
parents whose kids have special needs and without IDEA, would not have 
those needs met. They are concerned that Mrs. DeVos's seeming lack of 
familiarity with IDEA is indicative of how, if confirmed, her 
Department of Education would fail to protect the rights of these 
children--and every child--toward a free and appropriate public 
education that allows even kids with special needs to flourish.
  Another area under the Department of Education's jurisdiction where I 
have concerns about Mrs. DeVos's commitment and level of understanding 
is campus sexual assault compliance and enforcement. Since 2014, I have 
been proud to support bipartisan legislation led by my colleagues, 
Senator Gillibrand and Senator McCaskill, the Campus Accountability and 
Safety Act. At the end of last Congress, this legislation had the 
support of more than one-third of the U.S. Senate, as well as a broad 
coalition of advocacy groups, law enforcement organizations, and many 
of our leading colleges and universities. The Department of Education's 
own Office of Civil Rights has also played a very important role in 
initiating and in conducting title IX investigations. So you can 
understand why so many folks, including myself, were concerned when 
Mrs. DeVos did not demonstrate any depth of knowledge about the 
difference of opinion surrounding particular policy issues related to 
campus sexual assault.
  Similarly, when asked about a basic principle of education policy 
related to measuring student achievement, Mrs. DeVos was not able to 
articulate an understanding of the difference between growth and 
proficiency.
  In the same vein--and while this has become the subject of late night 
comedy, I think it is a very serious matter--Mrs. DeVos was not able to 
clearly express her understanding or her commitment to enforcing the 
Gun-Free School Zones Act, which, again, is Federal legislation, also 
signed by President Bush, where compliance is not optional.
  These are fundamental tenets of Federal education policy, not some 
obscure metrics, not small bills that languish in committee or small 
compromises. These are the principles and cornerstones of Federal 
education civil rights policy, and they cannot be more central to the 
Secretary of Education's core responsibilities of safeguarding 
students' civil rights and safety.
  For all of those reasons and others, I am not able to support Mrs. 
DeVos's nomination to be Secretary of Education.
  I know the Presiding Officer has had to hear a number of these 
comments. I hope that if she is not confirmed, the President will send 
down an Education Secretary nominee who brings more mainstream views to 
this very important issue. There are those of us, like me, who are all 
for education reform, but it has to be led by someone who will always 
put the needs of our kids first, and making sure they get a fair and 
appropriate education is guaranteed.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed by the 
qualifications of President Trump's nominee to be the leader of our 
Department of Education. Betsy DeVos has clearly shown a disregard--
even a hostility--for the public school system. So I stand with the 
thousands of parents, teachers, and students of New Mexico in fighting 
to stop her confirmation.
  Simply put, education is too important to New Mexico children and our 
State's economy to have a Secretary of Education not fully invested in 
the success of our public schools.

[[Page 1894]]

  As someone who grew up going to public school, who is sending my own 
kids to public schools, I am deeply troubled by Betsy DeVos's record on 
privatization, which goes well beyond simply voicing support for 
vouchers and private school. Mrs. DeVos has been a key player in the 
well-moneyed effort to privatize and siphon funds away from public 
education, and she has time and again undermined the teachers we all 
rely upon.
  It appears as though Betsy DeVos's most notable experience in 
education is spending her career and her fortune advocating for 
policies that divert public tax dollars away from public schools and 
into private schools. I cannot support a nominee who wants to weaken 
the kinds of public schools that so many New Mexicans rely on.
  The privatization policies pushed by Mrs. DeVos would be especially 
damaging to rural New Mexico, where there are few options to begin 
with. It is not uncommon for students to travel more than an hour to 
get to and from school in those parts of the State. School 
administrators often wear multiple hats, sometimes running the after-
school program or driving the local schoolbus. In rural areas in my 
home State, the public school is often the only choice, and there 
simply aren't enough students to support the kinds of for-profit 
private schools that Mrs. DeVos wants to replace them with.
  Having a Secretary of Education who has spent her entire career 
pushing a privatization agenda is not reassuring to New Mexicans and is 
at odds with the needs of the students and families across my State.
  Further, I do not believe that Mrs. DeVos understands the Federal 
Government's trust responsibility in serving Native American students. 
Given Mrs. DeVos's rushed nomination hearing in the HELP Committee, 
Senators were given very little opportunity to question her about her 
understanding of tribal issues and impact aid. So I am concerned that 
she will push her privatization agenda in these areas as well.
  For example, the Zuni Public School District is a small rural 
district in Western New Mexico. Earlier this week, their school board 
sent me a letter asking that I oppose Mrs. DeVos's nomination. I want 
to take a moment and read a few passage from this letter:

       The beauty of the United States public school system, 
     unlike many in the rest of the world, is that we take 
     everyone who walks through our doors and love every child who 
     sits in our desks, without question.
       This Board therefore stands by all of our students, no 
     matter what color or ethnicity, regardless of their creed; 
     every child who identifies on the spectrum of L,G,B,T, or Q; 
     every child with either a physical or learning disability, or 
     both . . . every child who speaks a second language; every 
     immigrant child as well as every Native American child who 
     can trace their lineage in this land back thousands of years; 
     every child who sees their education as the bridge between 
     their most ardent dreams and their most hopeful futures.

  These are powerful words that I fully support, and I thank the Zuni 
Public School District for speaking out on this matter. We should all 
be this concerned.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the entire letter from 
the Zuni Public School District be printed in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  During her nomination hearing, Mrs. DeVos demonstrated over and over 
that she is unfamiliar with even basic education issues, and she failed 
to commit to uphold the responsibilities of the Secretary of Education 
to support public schools. Given that Mrs. DeVos has no relevant 
experience as a teacher or school administrator, we should be very 
concerned with entrusting her to enforce key protections under title 
IX, under IDEA, and under other civil rights laws. In particular, Mrs. 
DeVos's lack of commitment to the Office of Civil Rights within the 
Department of Education, combined with the fact that she and her family 
have donated enormous sums of money to organizations that are anti-
LGBTQ, anti-women's rights, and anti-Muslim, is simply troubling.
  The mission of the Office of Civil Rights is to ensure equal access 
to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the 
Nation with vigorous enforcement of civil rights. During her nomination 
hearing, Mrs. DeVos would not commit to continuing the Office's 
policies that are making our college campuses safer by focusing on 
prevention and response to sexual assault. In fact, she has donated 
money to organizations that actually make it harder to prosecute sexual 
assault on our college campuses. As amazing as that sounds, it is true.
  If my Republican colleagues rubberstamp this nominee, they will 
confirm a Secretary of Education who doesn't believe in public schools, 
who will unravel rural education, and who has even worked to make it 
harder to protect women against sexual assault on college campuses. I 
believe that we have a moral imperative to ensure that all students 
have equal protections while attending school. Mrs. DeVos will be a 
massive step in the wrong direction.
  As the members of the Zuni Pueblo wrote to me in their letter, ``our 
children are our most sacred gifts.'' This is what we are voting on 
with this confirmation.
  We need an Education Secretary who is committed to upholding these 
principles. We need an Education Secretary who is committed to ensuring 
that every student has access to quality education, regardless of their 
background or their ZIP code, regardless of their ethnicity or their 
religion, and regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.
  In the last few weeks, my office has fielded thousands of calls and 
letters asking me to oppose this nomination. I have heard from more 
than 8,000 constituents on this one topic alone, many of whom called as 
parents, teachers, and some as students. That is more than any other 
Trump nominee whom we have considered to date. Never has an Education 
Secretary nomination received so much attention and opposition.
  I stand with the thousands of parents, teachers, and students across 
the country, and in my home State of New Mexico, fighting to stop this 
nomination. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                  Zuni Public School District #89,


                                 12 Twin Buttes Dr., Zuni, NM,

                                                 January 30, 2017.
       To our Honorable Senators and Representatives: We, the 
     Board of Education of Zuni Public School District, ask you to 
     add your support as we stand in opposition to the appointment 
     of Betsy DeVos as United States Secretary of Education on the 
     following grounds:
       During her confirmation hearing, Mrs. DeVos demonstrated 
     that she was woefully ill-equipped to head the Department of 
     Education. She has never attended a public school, never 
     taught or administered in a public school, and her children 
     have never attended a public school. She does not hold any 
     degree in the field of education, either in theory, 
     administration, or practice. She has a documented history of 
     promoting a charter and voucher based system that she 
     supported in her home state of Michigan, diverting funding 
     and support away from public education and deserving 
     children. Furthermore, when questioned in her hearing, Mrs. 
     DeVos was unable to explain the difference between growth and 
     proficiency, nor was she familiar with the federal law behind 
     IDEA, two essential and basic aspects of education. As well, 
     Mrs. DeVos advocated in her hearing to allow the presence of 
     guns in schools during an era of rampant mass violence based 
     primarily on the use of guns in schools. Mrs. DeVos has also 
     publicly stated that she sees education as a way to further 
     proselytize for the Christian faith, which would constitute a 
     violation of the Constitutional separation of Church and 
     State in public schools as it would in all federal 
     institutions.
       Our pueblo of Zuni is a small community in a western pocket 
     of rural New Mexico. We are neither a rich district nor one 
     that wields a great deal of political influence. What this 
     Board does represent is a rich, Indigenous tradition and 
     culture that holds high the ideals of hard-work, humility, 
     and integrity. We are an agricultural, peace-loving society 
     that has lived in this land since time immemorial.
       Yet our memory is long. We remember the era during which 
     education was combined with religion to be used as a weapon 
     against the Native peoples of this great nation. We know the 
     trauma such action has caused to reverberate through 
     generations of good, decent Americans. We also know the 
     resilience of those same people who, despite the infliction 
     of weaponized education, have come

[[Page 1895]]

     today to see literacy as their American birthright, and to 
     crave that sacred American Dream for which we are all 
     Constitutionally entitled to strive. This is a living 
     medicine and healing that must not be undone through the 
     dissolution of the separation of church and state, one that 
     we must nurture and safeguard for all American children.
       We are reminded during this time that, as you do, we hold 
     publicly-elected positions designed to represent a broad 
     spectrum of constituent. The beauty of the United States 
     public school system, unlike many in the rest of the world, 
     is that we take everyone who walks through our doors and love 
     every child who sits in our desks, without question. This 
     Board therefore stands by all of our students, no matter what 
     color or ethnicity, regardless of their creed; every child 
     who identifies on the spectrum of L,G,B,T,or Q; every child 
     with either a physical or learning disability, or both; every 
     child who speaks a second language; every immigrant child as 
     well as every Native American child who can trace their 
     lineage in this land back thousands of years; every child who 
     sees their education as the bridge between their most ardent 
     dreams and their most hopeful futures.
       We further stand by each parent, guardian, grandparent, 
     sibling, aunt, uncle; every member of kin that builds and 
     holds strong the dream of education for each of our children, 
     knowing as we have always known in Zuni that our children are 
     our most sacred gifts.
       And we, the Board of Education in Zuni Public School 
     District, stand by the teachers, aides, administrators, 
     counselors, liaisons, nurses, secretaries, custodians, cooks, 
     and bus drivers who as their daily work participate in the 
     painstaking and deeply patriotic act of ensuring equitable 
     access to education for all of our students. It is through 
     the diligence and action of just such citizens that this 
     nation is able to deliver unto each new generation of 
     American a passport to the possibility of American success.
       The children, families and hard-working faculties and staff 
     of the American public school system deserve a Secretary of 
     the Department of Education who is most eminently qualified, 
     through both education and experience, to advocate for all 
     Americans: diverse, complex, and brilliant citizens; to work 
     toward the most equitable education for all; and to uphold 
     this cornerstone of our democratic republic.
       It is for these reasons that the Zuni Public School 
     District Board of Education respectfully requests your most 
     passionate and vocal support in opposing the appointment of 
     Mrs. Betsy DeVos. We also ask that you look toward the 
     experienced and qualified education professionals working 
     within the public school system to fill this highest position 
     in the field.
           E:lah'kwa (Thank you) for your representation,
     Zuni Board of Education:
     Mr. Jerome Haskie,
       Board President
     Ms. Stephanie Vicenti,
       Vice Board President
     Ms. Masika Sweetwyne,
       Secretary
     Ms. Bernadette Panteah,
       Member
     Ms. Shelly Chimoni,
       Member.

  Mr. HEINRICH. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise to express my concern with the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education.
  The State of West Virginia is a State made up of a lot of small 
towns. We don't have any what you call large metropolitan areas. We are 
an urban rural State. For many communities in West Virginia, our 
schools are more than just classrooms, teachers, and textbooks. Our 
children in West Virginia learn more in their public school than 
reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are the heart of the community 
and a home away from home for most of them. They are a safe place to 
stay after school where no harm will come to them. They are a place 
where nutritional meals are served and health care services are 
provided by trusted school nurses.
  After meeting with Mrs. DeVos and watching her answer questions at 
her confirmation hearing, I have a hard time believing she has the 
qualifications to be the Secretary of Education. I believe in local 
control of education and also that strong public schools are vital to 
our State's future.
  Education is local. Each one of our 55 counties is responsible for 
the financing of the schools. If the counties do not have the 
sufficient funds, we have what we call a school aid formula that 
basically offsets that so that every child in West Virginia will get a 
quality education.
  In my State, charter schools and school vouchers would pull already 
limited public funds and resources from the schools, students, and 
teachers who need them the most and could be harmed and would probably 
be harmed.
  There are some towns in West Virginia with only one school--one 
school only--or where students have to travel for more than an hour on 
a bus to get to the school that has been consolidated. Voucher policies 
would be completely useless in these places. There is no place for them 
to attend.
  In areas where there are a few private schools in my State, a voucher 
program would have devastating effects for public school children. The 
limited dollars that we do have, if you deviate that money whatsoever, 
then basically you are going to have the strain on the public system 
that will not be able to pick it up in the rural areas. There is no 
other way for us to have the funding we need.
  Vouchers will siphon public funding away from our public schools, 
causing them to have to cut resources like teachers, advanced 
coursework, and preschool programs. They often do not pay the entire 
cost of attendance at a private school, making them unusable by low-
income students and families.
  Vouchers also can strip students with disabilities and their families 
of their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 
The most troubling part of that hearing, if you watched it or saw any 
parts of it, was the lack of understanding that every child deserves 
the opportunity for a quality education no matter what his or her 
disabilities may be. That is a responsibility we have as Americans.
  With that, if you have never been in a public school setting, you 
have never attended a public school yourself and have always been 
privately schooled, your children have never attended a public school 
and have always either been privately schooled or home schooled, you 
have probably never been in a setting where you have seen a disabled 
child trying to get the opportunities that other children have, with a 
special aide who is working with them. You can say that is a waste of 
resources. I guess you could say that if it wasn't your child. If it 
wasn't somebody you knew, it would be easy to say that, But just the 
empathy you would have--it would be hard for a person to understand 
that. I believe that is a compelling reason to make me take pause and 
say that I believe we need somebody who has had that diversity, who has 
had that real classroom experience.
  Another thing--never to be in a PTA meeting where you have problems 
with schools. You might have problems with the bus and transportation. 
You might have problems with extracurricular activities or lunch 
programs or a routine study program, where you can sit down with other 
parents and work through these programs. That is something that is hard 
for most of us in West Virginia to ever conceive, that you could never 
be in that position and never have that experience in life. I believe 
communities in West Virginia know our students' needs better than 
someone who never attended or worked in the public school system.
  Many West Virginians have called and written to me expressing their 
concern about Mrs. DeVos. I have a letter I want to read from Diane 
from Marion County, my home county. We have hundreds of letters that 
have come in. Diane writes:

       I am asking you to vote against the confirmation of Mrs. 
     Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. As an educator with 44 
     years of experience in public schools, I recognize we have 
     many issues, but I also know we do much that is right for 
     children. Educators no longer simply teach core content. We 
     know that children can only thrive if their social, emotional 
     and physical needs are met. The whole child is now the focus 
     of every teacher, and teaching has become a very difficult 
     but a very rewarding job.
       Educators need and DESERVE a Secretary of Education that 
     knows and understands

[[Page 1896]]

     the tremendous responsibility each of us has accepted. We do 
     not have the time to get the leader ``in step'' with us. We 
     need and DESERVE someone who understands how policies can 
     impact what we are able to do for our children. . . . We need 
     and DESERVE someone who understands the value of academic 
     growth versus proficiency. We need and DESERVE someone who 
     understands how important it is to send food home in 
     backpacks because our children will not eat during a weekend 
     or holiday break.

  I want to stop there and give you a personal experience. When I was 
Governor of the State of West Virginia, I would go around to the 
schools. The school would tell me what was going on in the community. I 
would always go to the cooks because they really had the pulse of the 
school. This was May, and school was getting ready to let out for the 
summer. One of the cooks was crying in the kitchen. I couldn't figure 
out what was wrong. I went back and tried to console her and talk to 
her.
  I said: Can you explain why you are so upset? You are just about out 
for the summer.
  She said: I know these little kids aren't going to eat much this 
summer.
  She wanted to stay and cook through the summer, have all year so the 
kids would have nutrition. That tells you what we are dealing with in 
an awful lot of rural settings.

       We need and DESERVE a leader who knows that almost every 
     teacher utilizes his/her own personal funds to buy pencils, 
     paper, classroom supplies and instructional materials for our 
     students because the budget for what our children DESERVE is 
     not given to us. That is the strain we already have on the 
     system now. If you put any more strain on that by taking 
     funds away makes it almost impossible.
       My request is not politically motivated--my request for you 
     to vote against Mrs. DeVos is about the teachers I work with 
     in Marion County and across WV. One of the pillars of a great 
     civilization is education. Although the American system of 
     education is not perfect, we are still envied by many 
     nations.
       Education is a hope for children of poverty as well as 
     those who have economic security. Please encourage President 
     Trump to seek out a former or current state superintendent of 
     education or a chancellor of higher education or anyone with 
     the knowledge to walk in step with us as we make a brighter 
     future for our children.

  During her hearing, Mrs. DeVos demonstrated a lack of knowledge about 
the basic issues in public education, including the debate about how 
best to measure student progress. She also did not appear to have a 
solid understanding about the amount of student loan debt in this 
country, which is now the second-largest source of consumer debt in the 
United States, surpassed only by home mortgages.
  Not only does she lack the institutional knowledge, but she has no 
personal or family experience with the student loan system or any 
experience running a major loan program like the one she would be in 
charge of as Secretary of Education. This leads me to believe that she 
would be unable to run the program effectively and efficiently.
  What I have said and spoke to other people about--I understand and I 
think most of us have been in Washington long enough to understand how 
the system works. Even though the person would have the greatest of 
intent, the most honorable of intent, wanting to do a balanced job, if 
they never had the experience and they are charged with setting up 
programs that are supposed to incentivize schools, school districts, 
States, those programs are not going to lean to where they have no 
knowledge; those programs will go to where they have the most knowledge 
and in a direction of the policies they believe in. With that being 
said, incentives would go in that direction. When the incentives go in 
that direction, it pulls further resources away from a rural public 
education system.
  At her hearing, Mrs. DeVos failed to recognize that the Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act is a Federal law protecting access for 
individuals with disabilities to a decent public education and that she 
would be in charge of ensuring that the school implemented the act. No 
child should ever be denied access to the same public education because 
they suffer from a disability. As both a Governor and a father, I can 
never look a parent in the eyes and tell them their child cannot get 
the same education as another child simply because they suffer from a 
disability and it would be too costly for us to do.
  West Virginians need an Education Secretary who has an understanding 
of the needs of all children, including those with disabilities, and is 
committed to ensuring they receive a quality education. A strong 
education is the building block for success for every child and the 
foundation for our country's long-term economic strength. We need an 
Education Secretary that understands the challenges that students, 
teachers, and schools in rural areas face.
  Betsy DeVos has spent her career working in the private school 
system, not investing in and improving the public school system. Much 
of the policies that Mrs. DeVos supports would divert public funds to 
private schools--whether it was intentional or not--strip 
accountability from these schools, and significantly harm the public 
school system in my little State of West Virginia, which is all we 
have.
  It is difficult to speak--and I try not to make it personal because I 
don't believe in the toxic rhetoric that goes on sometimes in this 
room, and it shouldn't in this great Senate Chamber of ours and on the 
Hill. So I know this is probably a good lady who is well-intentioned. 
She just doesn't have that personal experience it takes to grab this 
entire country and understand that we are different. States are 
different. We depend on it. We can't always go in one direction, and 
that is the flexibility. They are saying: Well, we will give you 
flexibility. We need the support from Washington to have the 
flexibility to make sure the children of West Virginia have the same 
opportunities that a child in Pittsburgh, PA, might have in a larger 
school district, one in a metropolitan area that could afford--because 
you don't have all the travel and everything else that is involved--to 
have a charter school.
  In my State, even the legislature couldn't. They looked at charter 
and voucher systems, and they couldn't find a pathway forward because 
of the limited funding and knowing that it would divert. If there is no 
more funding going into it, that means you have to cut the pie more. 
They were concerned about even going in this direction. My legislature, 
in the last 2 years, has flipped completely to a Republican majority in 
both the House and Senate. They are all good people, well-intended. 
They are looking at all these different avenues, but at the end of the 
day, you have to take care of those whom you are responsible for. In 
rural West Virginia, that is a child who might have to ride 1 hour just 
to go to school. I don't know where you would put a charter school. I 
don't know where, with the voucher system, you could send him.
  If we have a problem in deficiencies, that is basically the 
responsibility of the county and the community. It is the 
responsibility of the parents and guardians to be involved. It is a 
responsibility for all of us to speak up. I guess what we are going to 
end up with is all the children with disabilities or children who 
basically do not have the means or a person in their family who is able 
to drive them or take them to a special school; they are all going to 
be left, so-called, behind.
  It is just not who we are in West Virginia. I ask for your 
consideration that maybe we can find a Secretary who has the experience 
and understanding and has the real-life experience--they might have 
attended a public school themselves. I am a product--I am sure you are 
a product of public schools. We are a product of the public school 
system, probably, more than likely, rural public school systems. We did 
pretty well with them. People cared. We had to give a little bit and 
make some sacrifices, and we did that. The bottom line was that there 
were no options. We made the best out of what we had. These kids aren't 
going to have options. The majority of kids in West Virginia or 
Oklahoma will not have those options. You better make sure that school 
system you have, a public school in a rural setting, is giving that 
child every opportunity that he and she can excel. Who knows, maybe one 
day they will be sitting in my seat or your seat. I hope so.

[[Page 1897]]

  With that, I say I must oppose her achieving the Secretary position 
that President Trump has nominated her for, with all due respect. I 
think I stated my reasons for that. I would hope that people understand 
our rural public schools truly need a champion. We need that champion 
to really step forward and lift us all up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am here this afternoon to stand up to 
one of the most dangerous nominees in President Trump's Cabinet of Big 
Oil, big banks and big billionaires who are going to be populating the 
Cabinet of the United States.
  The Secretary of Education is responsible for a budget that includes 
$36 billion for elementary and secondary education, $150 billion for 
higher education each year. On top of that, the Secretary of Education 
is responsible for more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding Federal 
loans.
  This nominee, Betsy DeVos, would shape the policies and programs that 
affect more than 50 million students across our country. Young people 
may be 16 percent of our population, but young people represent 100 
percent of the future of the United States.
  We need a Secretary of Education who believes that all children 
deserve access to a quality public education, regardless of income, 
race, ethnicity, neighborhood, or disability status. Betsy DeVos does 
not share this commitment to equal opportunity, and she is unqualified 
to serve as Secretary of Education.
  Betsy DeVos has a long and well-documented record of opposing public 
school systems. She has implemented school choice voucher programs. She 
has simultaneously expanded and deregulated charter schools. In 
Massachusetts, we recognize that education is a passport to the job 
opportunities of the 21st century. Massachusetts students at the 4th, 
8th, and 10th grades are No. 1 in America in math, verbal, and science. 
We are No. 1 in math, verbal, and science, 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. 
If Massachusetts were a country, we would be second behind Singapore in 
reading for the whole planet. That is Massachusetts.
  We have a very high percentage of our students who are minorities in 
our home State. I live in Malden. Malden is a city of 60,000 people. 
Malden High School, 2016 graduation class, 28 percent White, 25 percent 
Asian, 24 percent Latino, 23 percent Black, 1 percent Pacific Islander. 
What is our goal? Our goal in Malden--our goal in Massachusetts--is to 
be No. 1. No. 1, not just in the United States but No. 1 in the world. 
We know you can do it if you make a commitment to these kids.
  It is not just our traditional public schools. It is our public 
charter schools, our private schools, our preparatory schools that are 
enormously successful. Many of them are world famous, these high 
schools. People send their children from around the country to go to a 
school in Massachusetts.
  The success of our public charter schools is largely due to very 
strong accountability measures brought about through State regulations 
and rigorous oversight. That is the key to our charter school system. 
It is accountability. It is oversight. It should not be draining money 
out of the charter school system for profits for private corporations. 
It has to be invested in the kids, but Betsy DeVos wants charter 
schools to have less accountability and has fought to keep charter 
schools unregulated across Michigan.
  When the Michigan State Legislature introduced a bipartisan bill that 
would have expanded oversight of charter schools, Betsy DeVos stepped 
in. She and her family donated $1.45 million to State legislators in 
order to strip the helpful oversight accountability language out of the 
bill. That works out to $25,000 a day over the 7-week period the bill 
was being debated. Betsy DeVos and her unlimited funding ultimately 
succeeded in blocking the commonsense accountability legislation. The 
students and families of Detroit were denied the key protections in 
oversight that their schools needed.
  Betsy DeVos's school choice priorities go beyond expanding and 
deregulating charter schools. She has pushed for voucher programs that 
would use taxpayer money, your money, to pay for a child's private 
school tuition. Under a national voucher system, the funding that would 
normally go to local school districts would instead be diverted away 
from public schools toward for-profit, private institutions. In 
addition to the private schools that benefit from a voucher system, 80 
percent of the charter schools in Michigan are run by for-profit 
companies, a much higher percentage than any other State. These 
companies are focused first and foremost on making money. We don't 
allow this to happen in Massachusetts. We have only one goal, and that 
is to be No. 1.
  That money must stay in the school system, especially if you are 
trying to educate a minority population, which is the future workforce 
of our country. That is key. They don't come from the traditional 
backgrounds in many circumstances. The Secretary of Education must 
fight for all children and families, not promote companies seeking to 
profit off the backs of our students. Not even Michigan--the State 
where DeVos and her family money have tried to exert the most influence 
over education policy--has implemented a statewide voucher system. 
Despite spending $5.6 million on a campaign to promote school vouchers, 
the DeVos family failed to amend the Michigan State constitution. If 
Betsy DeVos is allowed to expand her school choice policies across the 
United States, it would be devastating for our students and for the 
future of our country. Her ideas are too extreme. They will not work 
for our students or for school districts in our Nation.
  I also share serious doubts that Betsy DeVos will support all 
students in America. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is 
the primary Federal law that ensures that all students in every State 
have access to a free and appropriate public education, regardless of 
physical or mental handicaps, learning or attention disorders. This law 
covers students who are blind, deaf, vocally or mobility impaired, and 
those with autism or ADHD. Congress passed the original form of IDEA in 
1975. It is a bedrock law in our country. Yet when Betsy DeVos was 
asked about it during her nomination hearing before the HELP Committee, 
she stated that States should be responsible for determining how, and 
even if, to enforce IDEA.
  Remember, IDEA goes right to the heart of what we are going to do for 
those kids with disabilities. That is a bedrock law in our Nation. 
States must abide by it. We need a Secretary of Education who 
understands longstanding Federal education law and will commit to 
protecting every student in America because every student deserves the 
guarantee that they can and they will receive a free and appropriate 
public education that is promised and protected by law.
  If this laundry list of efforts to undermine public education wasn't 
enough to cause skepticism about Betsy DeVos's qualifications to be 
Secretary of Education, in her confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos would 
not commit to keeping guns out of our schools. Her response when asked 
about the issue was: ``I think that is best left to locals and States 
to decide.'' Guns do not belong anywhere near our schools or our 
students and teachers, not in public or private schools, not in 
elementary schools, and not in our high schools. I am proud to have 
stood with Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal on the floor of 
the Senate for 15 hours calling for congressional action on commonsense 
gun safety legislation. As a Senator, the safety and security of 
Massachusetts' schools, neighborhoods, and communities are my top 
priority.
  Our Secretary of Education has the safety of every student in every 
State in his or her hands, and I do not believe Betsy DeVos is up to 
that job. I do not stand alone in this conclusion that Betsy DeVos is 
unfit to be Secretary of Education. I received tens of thousands of 
letters and phone calls from constituents all across Massachusetts 
urging me to reject her nomination. These come from teachers and 
administrators, the people who work on these

[[Page 1898]]

issues every day. I have a letter here from Todd Simendinger, the 
principal of Rockport Elementary School in Rockport, MA.
  He wrote to me last week and said:

       Senator Markey, as a strong supporter of public education, 
     I ask that you oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as 
     Secretary of Education. We must have a secretary who can 
     commit to supporting every student in all public schools and 
     provide leadership that will help our neighborhood schools 
     succeed. Betsy DeVos's record in education and her 
     performance at the recent confirmation hearing prove that she 
     is the wrong candidate for the job. As a principal, I have 
     spoken with teachers, parents, students, and community 
     members who agree that America's future depends on a strong 
     investment in our Nation's public schools.

  The offices of so many of my colleagues who have spoken on the floor 
already have, like me, received these kinds of letters and messages 
literally on a minute-by-minute basis from our constituents. Their 
passion is born of a deep commitment to ensuring that the very best 
education for all of the children of the Commonwealth can only be 
provided if the standard for that education is high. I commend them, 
and I agree with their concerns. All children deserve that standard.
  So, from my perspective, you cannot have a more fundamental issue 
before us, this privatization of the public school system in America, 
the voucherization of our public school system in America. There is a 
model. It is Massachusetts. We do it right now. We are No. 1 in the 
country. We look over our shoulders at those who are behind us. But it 
is a standard that basically says: We are going to invest in the public 
schools and the charter schools. We are going to make sure they have 
the highest possible standards.
  That is a recipe for ensuring that every child, regardless of their 
national nationality or their income, gets the education they need for 
a portable passport to a global economy for the rest of their lives. 
That has to be our goal. What is happening using the philosophy of 
Betsy DeVos is a failure. It is a proven failure. We already see the 
results. What is happening in Massachusetts, what happens in 
implementing the standards of the laws that we already have on the 
books across our country--it points us in the correct direction.
  So with that, I urge a ``no'' vote on Betsy DeVos and her nomination 
as Secretary of the Education Department.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Congratulating the New England Patriots

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, American history was made last night. The 
New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. This triumvirate of Robert 
Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady continues this historic journey to 
being recognized as the greatest single football team in the history of 
the United States. Even as the Falcons were ahead by 25 points, even as 
the rest of the country thought the game was over, we in Massachusetts, 
we in New England, we have our own motto: In Belichick we trust. In 
Brady we trust.
  We knew it was not over. We knew there was still hope. We knew there 
was a plan that could be implemented that would ensure that the 
Patriots once again would prevail.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for giving me this opportunity to be 
recognized on this most important of all subjects. This incredible 
Patriots victory has brought joy to people all across New England. It 
has brought dismay to people in other parts of the country. They still 
continue to be mystified by this incredible team and the incredible 
leadership those three great leaders provide. But for us, we realize we 
are in the presence of greatness. We know how spoiled we are to have 
such a great team.
  I just wanted to rise and congratulate the New England Patriots, 
their leadership of Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, but all of 
this team, because their motto is a very simple motto. It says: Do your 
job. That is what every Patriot did last night. Because they stuck it 
out through every single play, at the end of the day, they were able to 
enjoy that historic victory.
  For my part, I can't be more proud of any group of New Englanders. It 
was just a fantastic victory. As a season ticket holder, when I was 19 
years old, when it was seven games at $6 apiece--$42 as a season ticket 
holder at Fenway Park. You can imagine how almost impossible it is to 
believe that we have reached such a stage where even those who have 
been critics of the Patriots now are forced to recognize that Bill 
Belichick is the greatest coach of all time; Tom Brady is the greatest 
quarterback of all time; and the Patriots, led by Robert Kraft, is the 
greatest franchise of all time. We are very proud that victory last 
night cemented that place in history.
  Once again, I just want to congratulate each and every one of them 
and especially the Patriots fans who, through thick and thin, have been 
with that team every step of the way.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise today as a product of New Jersey 
public schools, the son of Cuban refugees whose parents decided to 
leave everything behind because they did not like the dictatorship from 
the right and did not like what they saw in the Sierra Maestra, as the 
Castros were seeking to overthrow that government from the right, and 
who fled their own country in order to seek a better life in the United 
States.
  They were the lucky ones. They saw the handwriting on the wall, and 
they got out before the true brutality of the Castro regime took hold 
in Cuba. When they arrived here, they had nothing more than the promise 
of a brighter future and, if not for them, then for their children.
  In so many ways, it is the quintessential immigrant story; indeed, 
the quintessential American story. My mother worked as a seamstress in 
the factories of New Jersey. My father was an itinerant carpenter. We 
didn't have a lot of money--just enough to live in a small apartment in 
a tenement in Union City and put food on the table. But that was 
plenty. It was plenty because my parents knew that living in America 
gave their children access to a free public education, and they always 
taught us that an education was the key toward a better life.
  Growing up, I was a quiet kid. I was very studious. I got good 
grades, but I struggled with public speaking. I know some of my 
colleagues wouldn't believe that today, but it is true.
  Unfortunately for me, one of the final requirements before I 
graduated high school was a public speech class. Again, I did all the 
work, but I refused to actually stand up in front of the class and 
speak. I thought I could get away with it, but my teacher, Gail Harper, 
had other ideas.
  She kept me after class. After my classmates left, she forced me to 
recite short stories and poetry and speeches I had written that were 
part of the classwork. Eventually she told me that I was going to be 
the narrator in a school production, which meant that I was going to be 
speaking on stage in front of the entire student body. I was 
petrified--petrified. And I was inclined to refuse.
  I am not sure if there would have been a more terrifying thought to 
me in the world than having to get up in front of my entire student 
body, but Ms. Harper told me that she knew that I could succeed. If I 
refused, however, she would have no choice but to fail me. And if you 
knew my late mother, that was not an option.
  So I swallowed my fear, and when I got out there, I found that Ms. 
Harper's

[[Page 1899]]

work paid off. Not only did I realize that I could overcome all of that 
fear and anxiety, but it had instilled in me a hunger to keep working, 
to get better at speaking in front of people, a skill that I honestly 
owe my life's work to.
  For me, Ms. Harper was so much more than a teacher; she was a mentor 
and one of the unsung heroes of our public education system. And I am 
privileged to have had an opportunity to tell her that during her 
lifetime.
  Now, thanks to my parents' commitment and incredible public 
schoolteachers like Ms. Harper, this product of New Jersey public 
schools went on to get a law degree from Rutgers University, a State 
institution, and was able to rise from a tenement in Union City to 1 of 
100 Senators in a country of over 300 million people.
  I got my start in politics fighting for public schools in my 
hometown. When I was in high school, I was told that because of my 
grades and my activities, I could be in the senior honors program but 
that I had to cough up $200 for the books. My parents were poor. We 
lived in a tenement. I didn't have $200 for the books. And I couldn't 
understand, for the life of me, if I had the ability and the grades but 
not the money, that I would be barred from being in the honors program. 
So I raised such a ruckus that they gave me the books, told me to be 
quiet, and they put me in the honors program. But I had friends who had 
the same circumstances; they had the ability and the grades, but they 
didn't have the money. Unlike me, they didn't say anything, and they 
didn't get in. So I didn't think that was right.
  I petitioned to change the school board from being appointed by the 
mayor at the time to being elected by the public. Ultimately, I won the 
fight to change that school board and became the youngest school board 
member at that time in history when I was 20 years old.
  So I understand the promise of public education. I understand the 
challenges that come with it. I understand the need for parental 
engagement and the extraordinary impact that good teachers can have on 
our children's lives.
  I understand that our schools need access to adequate resources in 
order to allow every student to reach their full potential. And I 
understand that we have a long way to go to ensure that we truly do 
guarantee every child in America equal access to a high quality public 
education regardless of where they live, regardless of the happenstance 
of where they were born, regardless of their station in life.
  Most importantly, I understand that our public education system has 
formed the foundation upon which the American dream has been built for 
generations. It is the great socializing factor of our Nation, and 
there is no substitute for it. At its core, it is an all-taker system. 
It does not care whether you are wealthy or poor, whether your family 
predates European settlement, came on the Mayflower, or is first-
generation American. It does not care whether you are White or Black or 
Hispanic or Asian or Christian or Jewish or Muslim. It does not care 
whether you struggle with learning disabilities or autism or Down 
syndrome.
  Our public education system welcomes you with open arms and adheres 
to the fundamental principles that all are welcome, all are equal, and 
all deserve a chance to learn and earn a better life for themselves and 
their families.
  While we work to improve public education and renew our commitment to 
our children, we need a partner in the Federal Department of Education 
that also understands these challenges and shares our values. 
Unfortunately, I do not believe that Betsy DeVos is that candidate.
  While I do not question her intentions, her limited experience and 
advocacy for policies that fundamentally undermine public education 
make her unqualified to be the Secretary of Education.
  Mrs. DeVos has never participated in the public education system that 
she would be tasked with overseeing either as a student or a parent or 
a teacher or an administrator. I don't see that fact in and of itself 
alone as disqualifying but, coupled with the policies that she has 
advocated for in her home State of Michigan--pushing for more charter 
schools while simultaneously working against accountability for them, 
even as they profit off the backs of children while showing little 
improvement in student outcomes; advocating for voucher schemes that 
put public funding into private schools even for families that do not 
need the additional assistance, while depriving public schools of vital 
funding that they depend upon to provide a quality education to every 
student--it becomes clear that Mrs. DeVos does not understand that 
fundamental commitment to American children.
  My concerns about Mrs. DeVos were compounded by the answers she gave 
in her confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee. Guns have no 
place in our schools--at least in my view--except in the hands of 
trained law enforcement personnel tasked with keeping our children 
safe, yet when asked if she would do away with gun-free school zones, 
if told to do so by the President, Mrs. DeVos, after trying to avoid 
the question with a nonanswer about grizzly bears attacking schools, 
said she would ``support the President.''
  I do not believe that it is the role of a Cabinet Secretary to simply 
and blindly support the President, regardless of how misguided or 
dangerous an idea might be, nor do I believe that it is reasonable or 
responsible to make it easier to bring guns in and around schools, 
where they endanger our children. We must do a better job of securing 
universal background checks and treating mental health issues, but more 
guns is not the answer.
  Mrs. DeVos also said in her testimony that she believed that 
compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act should 
be left up to the States. IDEA, as the act is known, guarantees a 
``free, appropriate public education'' that is individualized to meet 
the needs of every student with disabilities.
  When Congress first passed IDEA in 1975--though it was called then 
the Education for All Handicapped Children Act--it came with a promise 
that the Federal Government would cover 40 percent of the cost to 
educate those with special needs. Unfortunately, we have not met that 
obligation, providing less than half of that funding in recent history.
  IDEA is Federal--not State--law. It is Federal law that needs 
increased funding and attention from the Federal Government. And when 
this was pointed out to Mrs. DeVos, she said simply that she ``may have 
been confused.''
  Our children with disabilities deserve a real Federal partner that 
understands the challenges they face and is committed to getting them 
the resources they deserve, not a Secretary of Education who is 
confused about the Federal role in education.
  These are only a few examples of how Mrs. DeVos has shown herself to 
be unprepared and unqualified for the very serious position to which 
she has been nominated.
  If confirmed, Mrs. DeVos would take over a multibillion-dollar 
Federal student aid and student loan program that helps American 
families afford the skyrocketing cost of higher education.
  I, myself, was a recipient of Pell grants and other Federal student 
aid and would not have been able to afford the cost of a college degree 
without them. Yet not only does Mrs. DeVos have no experience with 
student loans or managing such a program, she has very little, if any, 
engagement with any policy issues pertaining to higher education.
  At a time when trillions of dollars of student debt are acting as a 
barrier to obtaining a higher education, hindering a generation of 
graduates from entering the middle class, and acting as a drag on our 
economy, we deserve a nominee who understands these issues.
  As we continue to struggle with the best ways to measure student 
progress and achievement, we deserve a Secretary of Education who 
understands basic concepts like the difference between proficiency and 
growth.
  So let me just say, my own experiences have given me an incredible 
faith in the power of public education systems, while Mrs. DeVos has 
worked

[[Page 1900]]

only to undermine them. I believe that the Federal Government can be a 
strong partner in ensuring a free, quality public education for all 
students, especially those with disabilities, while Mrs. DeVos seems to 
think that the Federal Government should not be involved in these 
endeavors.
  I believe that guns must remain out of our schools, but Mrs. DeVos 
seemed to indicate that they could have a place there. Most 
importantly, I believe that our students, parents, teachers, and 
educators should be able to trust the person tasked with overseeing 
them. And the 50,000 New Jerseyans who have reached out to me to oppose 
her nomination have clearly shown that she has not earned that trust.
  Here is one example of a constituent who reached out to my office.

       Dear Senator,
       My name is Beth More and I live in your great State of New 
     Jersey in Fanwood in Union County. I am writing today to 
     express my deep opposition to the appointment of Betsy DeVos 
     as Secretary of Education. As a mother of two boys in our 
     public school system, and one with special needs, I am deeply 
     concerned and troubled by Mrs. DeVos's lack of public school 
     experience. In fact, the thought of her steering money and 
     funding away from public schools is not only a threat to my 
     children, but a threat to the 50 million other children 
     currently receiving a public education. She lacks 
     understanding in even the most basic issues that affect our 
     schools, and that, my Senator, is scary. I urge you to 
     strongly oppose this and tell your other colleagues in the 
     Senate the same.

  So I implore my colleagues to put politics aside, to examine Mrs. 
DeVos's qualifications closely, and to be open to the input that you 
all are receiving from your own constituents, like Beth More.
  I hope that if you are open in your mind in that regard, you will 
oppose Betsy DeVos's nomination to be Secretary of Education, as I 
will.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Appointments

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair, on behalf of the Vice President, 
pursuant to Public Law 94-304, as amended by Public Law 99-7, appoints 
the following Senator as the Chairman of the Commission on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki) during the 115th Congress: the 
Honorable Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
  The Chair, on behalf of the President of the Senate, pursuant to 
Public Law 106-286, appoints the following Members to serve on the 
Congressional-Executive Commission on the People's Republic of China: 
the Honorable Marco Rubio of Florida (Chairman), the Honorable James 
Lankford of Oklahoma, the Honorable Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the 
Honorable Steve Daines of Montana, and the Honorable Todd Young of 
Indiana.
  The Chair, on behalf of the President of the Senate, pursuant to 
Public Law 85-874, as amended, reappoints the following individual to 
the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing 
Arts: the Honorable Roy Blunt of Missouri.


                              Quorum Call

  Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll and 
the following Senators entered the Chamber and answered to their names:

                           [Quorum No. 2 Ex.]

     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cornyn
     Donnelly
     Fischer
     Grassley
     Isakson
     Kaine
     Lankford
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Murphy
     Tillis
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moran). A quorum is not present.
  The clerk will call the names of absent Senators.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk resumed the call of the roll 
and the following Senators entered the Chamber and answered to their 
names:

                           [Quorum No. 2 Ex.]

     Barrasso
     Cotton
     Gardner
     Moran
     Murray
     Schumer
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is not present.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms 
to request the attendance of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas 
and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. 
Murkowski), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), and the Senator from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 4, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 53 Ex.]

                                YEAS--91

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Franken
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--4

     Collins
     Heller
     Rubio
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Flake
     Murkowski
     Sasse
     Toomey
     Udall
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is present.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  (The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 
50 are located in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to join me 
in opposing the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education. 
Simply put, Betsy DeVos is completely unqualified to serve as Secretary 
of Education in this great Nation.
  Many others share this view. I have heard from thousands of parents, 
teachers, and other citizens of Wisconsin who are concerned about the 
future of our education system urging me to oppose Mrs. DeVos and 
certainly opposing her vision for America's students. As of today, over 
20,000 Wisconsinites have emailed me, and we have had over 7,000 phone 
calls opposing the confirmation of Mrs. DeVos, and Senate Democrats are 
unified in our opposition to Mrs. DeVos serving in this capacity. Even 
two Senate Republicans have announced that they cannot support Betsy 
DeVos. If just one more of my Republican colleagues were to announce 
their opposition and were to vote no, we could do the right thing and 
tell President Trump that he really needs to find a new candidate, a 
new candidate for Secretary of Education who is qualified to run that 
Department.

[[Page 1901]]

  While Betsy DeVos has spent decades advocating for a particular 
vision for education, she has never actually worked as a teacher or as 
an administrator. Her career has involved investing hers and her 
family's considerable wealth and using those resources to advance the 
privatization of our K-12 education system. She did not attend a public 
school either for grade school, high school, or college, and nor did 
her children. She has never worked as a teacher, principal, professor, 
counselor, or in any other formal role in our education system.
  Her confirmation hearing before the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee clearly demonstrated how little she knows about 
Federal education law and policy. It was startling to see her ignorance 
about critical measures like the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act or the debate over growth versus proficiency as a measure 
of student achievement. Betsy DeVos has demonstrated that she has 
neither the knowledge nor the experience in education that would allow 
her to be a successful leader of the Department of Education. Mrs. 
DeVos has worked to advance a vision of K-12 education that is 
fundamentally hostile to our public education system.
  My home State of Wisconsin has a long and very proud tradition of 
support for public education. Back at the founding of our State, we 
wrote the guarantee that every child should receive a free public 
education into our very founding document, our State Constitution. 
Wisconsin had the first kindergarten in the United States. Wisconsin is 
proud of something that we actually call the Wisconsin idea in higher 
education; that the walls of the classroom should be the borders of the 
State, if not the borders of this Nation or the entire world.
  Mrs. DeVos's experience in education, however, has been a decades-
long effort to privatize it. Her record of support for vouchers as well 
as charter schools that lack adequate accountability and oversight is 
very troubling and could lead to diversion of public dollars in even 
greater amounts out of public education.
  Regardless of any vision or experience on education, Mrs. DeVos is a 
nominee with, let's say, complex and opaque finances. She has a very 
opaque record of financial dealings and political giving, including on 
matters directly related to the work that the Department does which she 
seeks to lead. Given her and her family's investments in companies that 
benefit directly from Federal education programs, I remain very 
concerned about what we simply still don't know.
  I am also troubled by Mrs. DeVos's and her family's long history of 
contributing to organizations that have been hostile to the lesbian, 
gay, bisexual, and transgender community, even promoting the 
discredited idea that sexual orientation or gender identity can be 
changed through conversion therapy.
  While she told me and several of my colleagues at her hearing that 
she believes all students should be treated equally, I really remain 
concerned about how this long history of support for these anti-LGBTQ 
organizations will influence a Department which, over the last 8 years, 
has shown some tremendous leadership in supporting LGBTQ students and 
parents in the education system.
  The Federal Government's primary role in elementary and secondary 
education is to promote equity. I am not convinced that Mrs. DeVos will 
be the leader the Department needs to do just that. Congress passed the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965 as a civil rights 
measure. It was designed to ensure that every student, regardless of 
ZIP Code or parents' income, has access to a quality public education.
  We continued that important tradition in reauthorizing this law, 
which is now in the form of a very strongly bipartisan bill, the Every 
Student Succeeds Act. The next Secretary of Education will have to 
implement that act.
  I fear that Mrs. DeVos, as a vocal proponent of State and local 
control, will not be the strong voice we need to hold States 
accountable for serving all students, particularly those who have been 
historically left behind.
  When we passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, we made sure there 
were strong Federal guardrails to assure that we never forget why there 
is a Federal role in education to begin with, for equity and civil 
rights and to make sure that every child can succeed. Furthermore, I am 
very concerned that Mrs. DeVos would not commit to robustly supporting 
the Department's Office for Civil Rights or enforcing the very guidance 
that protects transgender students from discrimination.
  Betsy DeVos lacks knowledge about and commitment to the Federal laws 
that ensure students with disabilities have access to the various 
supports that they need to receive and benefit from a quality public 
education.
  As I noted, she has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding 
about our Federal obligations to these students. I have heard from 
numerous parents in Wisconsin, parents of students with disabilities 
who were appalled by her inadequate answers to questions at our 
education panel hearing. She was unprepared to answer questions about 
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and these parents have 
written to express their distress about what her filling the role of 
Secretary of Education could mean for their children if she were to be 
confirmed.
  One Wisconsin mother of three special needs children wrote to me 
about how this Federal law provided the legal rights that she needed to 
advocate for them, to advocate for the best possible educational 
environment for her three sons with special needs.
  I heard from another mother, Melissa from Beloit, who detailed how 
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act makes it possible for 
her daughter, Rowenna, who has Down Syndrome and autism, to actually 
thrive in a public education setting, along with her peers.
  Finally, as a strong proponent of making college more accessible and 
affordable, I do not believe that Mrs. DeVos has the experience or 
vision that will allow her to successfully lead the Department in 
supporting higher learning.
  There is a student debt crisis in this country, but Mrs. DeVos 
doesn't have a plan to address it and has even expressed skepticism 
about a Federal role.
  While she has acknowledged that there are some bad actors in higher 
education, she has also refused to commit to enforcing regulations that 
help students who are defrauded by dishonest schools like Corinthian 
Colleges. We need a Secretary of Education who is an advocate for those 
students, not one who is looking for ways to shirk that responsibility.
  Despite the fact that the Department oversees billions of dollars in 
grants and loans that allow students to pursue higher education, she 
has expressed skepticism about any Federal role in making college more 
affordable. She has even refused to oppose cuts to a program that helps 
students who commit to a career in public service or to support efforts 
to ensure that the value of the Pell grant keeps pace with the cost of 
college.
  For all of these reasons and many others, Betsy DeVos is not the 
right choice for Secretary of Education. I call on my colleagues to 
defeat her on the question of confirmation and to afford this new 
President the chance to send us a nominee who is prepared to be an 
advocate for all students and public education in this country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my postcloture 
debate time to Senator Schumer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  The Senator from Florida is recognized.


      Chinese Political Prisoners Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jingling

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I know that we are in the middle of an 
important debate about a topic of education in our schools. One of the 
topics I hope young Americans will learn more about is the state of 
affairs across the world when it comes to human rights.

[[Page 1902]]

  We are a vibrant society engaged in a heated debate, as we often have 
been throughout our history, about items of political matters. If you 
look here today, there are people standing up to speak on different 
sides of an issue. You see that the Republican Party today controls the 
White House, the Senate, and the House, and yet you have people with 
the freedom in this country to be able to stand up and oppose that. We 
have seen that across the country with demonstrations and speeches and 
all sorts of other protected speech. We are very fortunate and blessed 
to live in a nation with those freedoms. That is not the case all over 
the world.
  I wanted to take this opportunity in the midst of all of this debate 
and discussion about an important topic, the nomination before the 
Senate, to remind people that despite our differences on these issues, 
we are truly blessed to be able to live in a country where opposing the 
party in power does not mean you go to jail.
  As I have been doing for some time now, I wanted to come this evening 
and highlight yet another example of human rights abuses that is taking 
place in a very important part of the world. For the past couple of 
years, my office and I have been highlighting human rights cases 
through our social media campaign. We call it hashtag ``Expression NOT 
Oppression.''
  The goals of this are to raise awareness about these cases and the 
individuals who are suffering at the hands of these repressive 
governments. We know that through history some of the oppressed 
people--we may not think these floor speeches matter; we may not think 
that mentioning it here in this forum matters, but it does to them 
because one of the first things oppressors tell them is that the world 
has forgotten about them, and they don't matter anymore. That is one of 
the first reasons we come: to raise awareness and let them know we know 
their names, we know their story, and we will continue to speak out on 
their behalf.
  The second reason is to show their families and their loved ones that 
elected officials--like me here in the United States--have not 
forgotten them because we know that tyrants, as I said, like to tell 
political prisoners that they are alone in their struggle.
  The third reason is to call for action, whether it is for the 
administration to make their causes a priority, too, or to call on 
these governments to release these individuals.
  There is one more reason I think that this effort, hashtag 
``Expression NOT Oppression,'' is important. As well as all the good 
work being done here on both sides of the aisle in defense of human 
rights, promotion of democracy and the defense of God-given freedoms 
like religious freedom and freedom of the press and free speech, which 
we celebrate here even in this debate, have to continue to be pillars 
of our foreign policy. I hope that these cases we highlight bring those 
guiding principles to light.
  Today, I want to discuss the cases of two Chinese political prisoners 
whose courageous wives I had the opportunity to meet last week when 
they visited in Washington, DC. These women personally requested that I 
intervene on behalf of their husbands, pressing on the Chinese 
Government to unconditionally release them and, in the case of one, to 
account for his whereabouts. Perhaps just as importantly, they urged me 
that I press our own State Department to prioritize these cases 
diplomatically in the hope that these families can be reunited in the 
not-too-distant future.
  I come here today to urge our now new Secretary of State, Mr. 
Tillerson, to prioritize the release of these men in his diplomatic 
engagement with China. In the coming weeks, I also expect that we will 
have a chance to hear from the President's nominee to be U.S. 
Ambassador to China, Governor Branstad of Iowa. When he comes before 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing, I 
will bring up these cases and others and urge him to make their freedom 
a priority of his work if confirmed.
  Jiang Tianyong is a 45-year-old lawyer. He was disbarred by the 
Chinese Government because of his vigorous human rights advocacy, 
including his representation of blind legal advocate Chen Guangcheng, 
fellow rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, Falun Gong practitioners, and other 
human rights cases. Despite the risks of this work, he has been 
steadfast in his support of the families and of their right to lawyers 
and legal advocates caught up in China's sweeping nationwide crackdown 
on the legal community in July of 2015, which ensnared roughly 250 
lawyers and advocates.
  Consistent with a spate of recent media stories, Jiang's wife 
indicated that his family and friends lost contact with him in late 
November of last year. That is when a Chinese state-controlled 
newspaper reported he had been detained for a series of trumped-up 
charges.
  His wife has received no formal confirmation of his precise 
whereabouts, and, to date, he has been denied access to a lawyer of his 
choosing. Even more troubling is that this is entirely legal under 
China's laws, even though it violates all international norms of 
justice. Under China's own laws, authorities may hold him, or anyone, 
for up to 6 months without informing his family where he is held and 
without allowing him to access a lawyer, conditions that the United 
Nations Committee Against Torture has found place ``detainees at a 
high-risk of torture.'' Indeed, reports over the past months about four 
other human rights lawyers provide detailed information about the 
Chinese authorities' use of torture to extract ``confessions'' and 
impose unbearable psychological pressure.
  All of these realities underscore that China remains a country of 
rule by law. Congressmen Chris Smith of New Jersey and I cochair the 
Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which found in our 2016 
annual report that ``the Chinese Communist Party has continued to 
reject the notion that the rule of law should supercede the Party's 
role in guiding the functions of the State.'' As such, lawyers, 
advocates, dissidents and others often find themselves in the party's 
crosshairs, persecuted under the law, rather than protected by it, and 
they have no recourse of justice.
  A second Chinese individual I want to highlight today is lawyer Tang 
Jingling, who has also been disbarred for his rights advocacy. He first 
gained prominence as a lawyer working on cases related to village 
compensation, corruption, and by representing activists. In January of 
last year, he was convicted of ``inciting subversion of state power.'' 
That is the charge, and he was sentenced to 5 years in prison. He was 
first detained in May 2014 on suspicion of ``picking quarrels and 
provoking troubles.'' Just imagine that. Picking quarrels and provoking 
troubles is a crime in China. This happened, by the way, during the 
lead up to the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, when 
the Chinese Government worked desperately to wipe out any discussion or 
memory of this historically brutal crackdown. In reality, all Tang and 
other activists did was participate in a nonviolent disobedience 
movement seeking legal and social reform in China.
  Following his conviction, Tang eloquently wrote:

       Inside the grand edifice of the court, we can see stately 
     and ornate furnishings and decorations, and we can see the 
     government employees in dignified attire. But we cannot see 
     the law and we can definitely not see justice.

  He continues, movingly, speaking of the faith that has sustained him 
in the midst of injustice:

       The Holy Bible has a passage that reads: ``Blessed are 
     those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake.'' Today, 
     we have been pronounced guilty, thrown in prison, separated 
     from our families, and have endured humiliation and 
     difficulties--and I am far from being able to convince and 
     prove to others how these tribulations could have become my 
     blessings. But God's will is inevitably difficult to 
     understand. I often pray and ask him to give me more 
     strength, so that I may persevere until the moment of 
     revelation. I dare say, in 2011, while in a secret jail, and 
     now in detention, almost every day I have passed has been 
     calm and fulfilling. I have never lost my direction.

  The courage and conviction of these men should be an inspiration to 
us

[[Page 1903]]

all--an inspiration that should propel us to act. I would add a 
reminder again of how blessed and fortunate we are to live by the grace 
of God in a nation where we have the freedom to speak, to object, to 
state our views without fear of the circumstances and the consequences 
that these brave men now face. The Chinese people who yearn for the 
protection of their most basic human rights and bravely stand with 
their fellow marginalized countrymen are China's greatest asset--not 
its biggest threat, as the government of the Communist Party wrongly 
believes. Any government which views its own people with such fear and 
hostility will, as has often been said, find itself on the wrong side 
of history.
  So I hope more of my colleagues in this body, in the House, and 
especially in the administration will join their voices in support of 
these political prisoners and all who languish in jails, prisons, and 
gulags simply because they want a better life, because they want a say 
in their future and have bravely made these aspirations clear.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                Congratulating The New England Patriots

  Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, before getting to the matter at hand, I 
thought I would take a minute to congratulate the New England Patriots, 
the Kraft family, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and all of the Patriots 
players and fans everywhere for the greatest comeback victory in Super 
Bowl history. They really demonstrated the grit and determination and 
resilience that New Hampshire and New England is known for, and we are 
very, very proud of them.
  Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in opposing the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos to serve as the Secretary of Education. Our 
Nation recognized early in its history that public education is a 
necessary foundation for our democracy. It is critical that we continue 
to support a strong public education system that prepares all of our 
young people to participate in our democracy and to compete in the 21st 
century workforce.
  All public officials, regardless of their party affiliation, should 
share a reverence for the importance of public education to our 
country's success, both now and into the future. They must show a 
commitment to enforcing our laws so that all students have the 
opportunity to succeed. I agree with my colleagues that Mrs. DeVos has 
not shown a commitment to or an understanding of these principles, and 
that is why I oppose her nomination.
  This nomination process has been extremely disappointing from the 
start. Mrs. DeVos failed to provide critical information on her 
finances. Members of the HELP Committee were only given 5 minutes to 
question Mrs. DeVos on her views on our Nation's education system.
  In the questions she did answer before the committee, Mrs. DeVos 
demonstrated a complete lack of experience in, knowledge of, and 
support for public education. She was unable to address basic issues--
issues any New Hampshire school board member could discuss fluently.
  She showed that she lacks an understanding of issues facing students 
with disabilities. She has potential conflicts of interests that she 
still has not answered basic questions about. She supports diverting 
taxpayer dollars to private schools without accountability 
requirements.
  As Governor of New Hampshire, I supported public charter schools. 
They play an important role in driving innovation in education and in 
providing additional opportunities for nontraditional learners, but 
they must meet the same standards as other public schools.
  In Detroit, Mrs. DeVos led efforts to oppose accountability 
requirements, even for for-profit charter schools. In her testimony 
before the HELP Committee, she declined to support enforcing 
accountability requirements. It is clear that Mrs. DeVos would pursue 
policies that would undermine public schools in my home State of New 
Hampshire and across our Nation.
  In the past several weeks, thousands of Granite Staters--including 
students, parents, teachers, principals, and superintendents--have 
called and written into my office. They have shared their concerns 
about Mrs. DeVos. They understand that she is completely unqualified 
for this position. Our children, their families, and our Nation deserve 
better than a Secretary of Education who does not value public 
education.
  Ensuring access to public education for every student is an issue 
that is deeply personal to my family. Shortly after my husband Tom and 
I welcomed our first child into the world, our son Ben, we found out 
that he had severe and pervasive physical disabilities. It became clear 
to Tom and me that we were going to need a little bit of extra help if 
our son was going to have the kind of future we all want our children 
to have.
  We were lucky because we found that help in our community--not only 
among friends and neighbors but in a public school system that welcomed 
Ben. I still remember the day that a schoolbus pulled into our 
driveway. We wheeled Ben onto the lift and up into the bus, and off he 
went at age 3 to his first day of preschool--a publically funded, 
inclusive preschool. As I sat on the stoop and watched the bus pull 
away, I found myself thinking that if Ben had been born a generation or 
two earlier, Tom and I would have been pressured to put Ben in an 
institution. There wouldn't have been the resources in our community or 
in our school system to include Ben.
  But because of the work of the champions--the families, the 
advocates--who went before the Hassan family, Ben was able to go to 
school in his hometown. He was able to learn and to make friends, to do 
what we all want our children to do. That is the power of public 
education. It is the power of making sure that all kids are included.
  Our family was able to live like any other family and feel like any 
other family because Ben could go to school in his hometown. As Ben 
went from preschool to elementary school to middle school to high 
school, we found that his peers accepted him, interacted with him, and 
grew with him. I still remember a day when I got a call from one of 
Ben's teachers, saying that the tire on his power wheelchair had gone 
flat. That is the type of call that a parent of a child with complex 
needs dreads because it means that you have to stop everything--because 
if the wheelchair can't move, your child can't go through their day.
  But instead of my needing to take a day off from work and pursue the 
repair of Ben's chair, it was other students in our Career and 
Technical Education Center in Exeter who came forward and said: ``We 
can fix that.'' Their education preparing them for a trade and a career 
served Ben's needs that day beautifully. Both Ben and his peers learned 
that day. Ben's experience in public education was made possible 
because of so many advocates, educators, and families who came before 
our family.
  But this was not always the case for students who experience 
disabilities. When I served in the New Hampshire State Senate, I grew 
to know a woman named Roberta. Roberta, born in the early 1950's, had 
spent a good portion of her life in our State's school for individuals 
with disabilities. Roberta left that State school as we began to work, 
after the passage of the IDEA, to bring people out of institutions and 
into the communities.
  Later, as Roberta learned to advocate for herself and tell her story, 
she recorded some of her memories from the Laconia State School, the 
separate school--so-called school--for students with disabilities. 
Roberta wrote:

       Some of the attendants and residents at the Laconia State 
     School sexually, verbally, emotionally and physically abused 
     and assaulted me. The staff said they did this to me because 
     I misbehaved or acted silly. The attendants and residents 
     there hit and kicked me with their hands and feet. They 
     pulled my hair, whipped me with wooden or metal coat hangers, 
     wet towels, hair brushes, mop and broom handles, hard leather 
     belts, straps, rulers and hard sticks, stainless steel 
     serving utensils and clothes.

  Roberta adds:

       Additionally, they bullied me by laughing at me and calling 
     me names. They spat at

[[Page 1904]]

     me, bit and pinched my arms and other body parts causing me 
     pain. The employees and supervisors at the institution threw 
     buckets of cold water on my body, clothes and all. They said 
     that the cold water would calm me down.

  Roberta's experience was, unfortunately, what life was like for some 
students with disabilities before IDEA. Years later, after Roberta left 
Laconia State School, after she was reintegrated into her community, 
she appeared before a State senate committee that I was chairing 
because she was the main proponent of a law that we passed in the New 
Hampshire State Senate to remove the word ``retarded'' from all of our 
State statutes. Roberta knew that it was the judgment of people who 
first interacted with her, people who believed she had intellectual 
disabilities, that caused her parents to believe that they had to put 
not only Roberta but her sister Jocelyn in an institution. Both Roberta 
and Jocelyn happened to have the misfortune of being born with 
disabilities.
  It is that contrast between Roberta's experience and my son's that 
keeps me focused on the importance of making sure that we include all 
children in our public school system but also that we have the laws in 
place to ensure that they get the free appropriate education that all 
American children deserve.
  Unfortunately, Mrs. DeVos has demonstrated a lack of understanding of 
the challenges facing students with disabilities. At our hearing 
earlier this month, I questioned Mrs. DeVos on whether she would 
enforce IDEA. Not only did she decline to assure Senators that she 
would enforce the law to protect students with disabilities, but she 
was confused about whether IDEA was indeed a Federal law to begin with.
  While I am pleased that Mrs. DeVos later clarified that she is no 
longer confused about whether IDEA is a Federal law, she has done 
nothing to reassure me that she would enforce it or that she 
understands how fragile the gains we have made under IDEA are.
  The voucher system that Mrs. DeVos supports has often, intended or 
not, hurt individuals who experience disabilities. Children and 
families lose legal protections enshrined in the IDEA. In some cases, 
students and their families have to sign away their civil rights before 
they can receive their vouchers. Yet many of the private schools that 
take those vouchers--the schools that Mrs. DeVos wishes to push 
students to--lack basic resources or accommodations for children who 
experience disabilities.
  So if a family determines that the school that has accepted their 
voucher really does not have the resources or the expertise to educate 
their child, they have no legal recourse. Mrs. DeVos's unfamiliarity 
with IDEA, her comments on students with disabilities was something my 
office heard about often from Granite State parents who contacted the 
office with concerns about her nomination.
  A mother from Hopkinton, NH, wrote to tell me about her daughter who 
attends Hopkinton High School and experiences severe disabilities--is 
nonverbal and requires assistance for all aspects of her daily care.
  This mother wrote:

       Despite all of this, because of the extraordinary support 
     we have received, she is living a rich and loving life at 
     home and is part of the public school system. I have no 
     confidence that Betsy DeVos would understand or support the 
     role that public schools have for taking care of all 
     students.

  This mother also called Mrs. DeVos's lack of understanding of IDEA 
``appalling.''
  I also heard from a parent from Concord, NH, who said:

       My stepdaughter currently has a 504 plan for both a 
     physical and cognitive disability at Concord High School, 
     who, incidentally, are doing an excellent job of working with 
     her to make sure her learning needs are met. My children 
     deserve a future and so do all children.

  This parent said she was feeling ``vulnerable'' as a result of Mrs. 
DeVos's nomination. Parents all across our Nation deserve to know that 
the rights of their children will be protected, and they are rightfully 
concerned with Mrs. DeVos's nomination.
  In New Hampshire, I am proud of our work to build a future where 
every child can get the kind of education they need to be competitive 
and successful leaders in the 21st century economy. Just last week, I 
visited Souhegan High School in Amherst, NJ. Souhegan has become a 
pioneer in competency-based education. I visited numerous classrooms 
where students were doing hands-on lessons in Earth science, in 
literature to make sure they could master the material before them in a 
way that would stick with them.
  They were great examples of what we have learned about the importance 
of hands-on, project-based learning, how much better students retain 
information, knowledge, problem-solving skills, when they actually have 
a problem to solve, and how important it is for them to learn to 
collaborate with their fellow students, just the way we expect people 
to collaborate as a team in the workplace.
  After I visited the classes, the students at Souhegan had formed a 
panel to talk with me. There, students with a variety of interests, 
backgrounds, and education levels talked to about how important it was 
for them to have control of their own learning, to learn in a way, in a 
style that worked for them to work with their peers and build off of 
each other's strengths and learn from each other.
  I also talked with them about New Hampshire's pilot, project-based 
competency assessment program called PACE, something that New Hampshire 
received waivers to do over the last year, and they are in the process 
of continuing right now. New Hampshire is piloting a program that moves 
us away, just as was recommended and foreseen by the Every Child 
Succeeds Acts from high-stakes, one-time testing to project-based 
assessments that are built into the project-based competency learning 
they are doing.
  We are seeing great success with this pilot, and schools across the 
country are beginning to adopt it as well. That is the power of strong, 
innovative public education. This was an approach developed by teachers 
and parents and students and our Department of Education and our 
statewide school board as well as local school boards together. Just as 
we have important initiatives surrounding project-based learning in New 
Hampshire, we also have strong public charter schools.
  I still recall a visit to our North Country Charter School in one of 
the more rural parts of New Hampshire, a school that was formed--a 
regional effort--to allow students for whom traditional high school was 
not working, whether it be because of their learning style, because of 
particular events that were happening in their home, or other emotional 
or developmental issues.
  It allows them to come together and go to school in a way and in a 
place that works for them, keeping them in school, helping New 
Hampshire meet its goal set in law that no child drop out of high 
school before age 18.
  The strength of the students I saw at the Country Charter School 
graduation was extraordinary; students who would overcome particular 
challenges, whether it was personal, whether it was academic--speaking 
for themselves and about themselves and their vision of their own 
future to a crowded, excited room of friends and family.
  That is another kind of public education that supplements our 
statewide public education system and is something we can work together 
to do, holding all schools accountable. The vision that Mrs. DeVos, on 
the other hand, outlined and has devoted much of her work to, would 
dismantle the progress we have made, diverting taxpayer dollars to 
private, religious, and for-profit schools without accountability 
requirements.
  Mrs. DeVos advocates for a voucher system that leaves out students 
whose families cannot afford to pay additional tuition costs, and 
leaves behind students with disabilities because the schools do not 
accommodate their complex needs. In his book, ``Our Kids,'' Robert 
Putnam notes that education should be a mechanism to level the playing 
field, but today the inequality gap is growing because affluent 
students start better prepared and are more able to pay.
  Putnam also points out that daycare and transportation needs 
constrain the

[[Page 1905]]

amount of choice that poor parents have when it comes to voucher 
programs. We should all be working to fix that gap, but the voucher 
programs that Mrs. DeVos advocates for threaten to increase the gap. 
The system that Mrs. DeVos advocated for in Detroit, MI, has undermined 
public schools and hurt students in the process.
  In 2014, Michigan taxpayers spent $1 billion on charter schools, but 
laws regulating them are weak and the State demands little 
accountability. The Detroit Free Press reported on the Detroit school 
system, finding a system where school founders and employees steered 
lucrative deals to themselves or to other insiders, where schools were 
allowed to operate for years despite their poor academic records.
  The Detroit Free Press described a system with no State standards for 
those who operate charters and where a record number of charter 
schools, run by for-profit companies, refuse to detail how exactly they 
are spending taxpayer dollars.
  One Detroit mother said that Mrs. DeVos's ``push for charter schools 
without any accountability exposed my children and their classmates to 
chaos and unacceptable classroom conditions.''
  In Florida, the McKay Scholarship Program voucher for students with 
disabilities that Mrs. DeVos has pointed to also raises significant 
concerns, including no due process rights for students under IDEA, no 
accountability requirements for participating schools, and absolutely 
no evidence of student success.
  Additionally, the McKay voucher often does not cover the full cost of 
the private school, leaving parents responsible for tuition and fees 
above the scholarship amount, not to mention responsibility for 
transportation. This puts students and their families at risk. Rather 
than taking the approach we have in New Hampshire, where charter 
schools supplement a strong public education system, this system of 
unaccountable schools destabilizes and undermines public schools.
  Now, given that Mrs. DeVos's goals for K-12 education are what they 
are and the fact that we were only given 5 minutes to question her at 
the hearing, many key issues facing American students were not 
discussed at all in her confirmation hearing. In particular, we did not 
talk about higher education. When I was Governor of New Hampshire, I 
was proud of our work to make college more affordable, building a 21st 
century workforce pipeline for our businesses.
  We froze tuition for the first time in 25 years at our public 
university system, and we actually lowered it at our community 
colleges. We engaged in increasing and more robust job training 
efforts, where we partnered businesses with community colleges or other 
learning centers to make sure we were engaged in the kind of job 
training that would prepare students for the 21st century economy.
  I was hoping that at our hearing for Mrs. DeVos's confirmation, we 
would discuss higher education, but issues relating to higher education 
have been lost altogether in this discussion. What is clear, though, is 
that Mrs. DeVos has absolutely no experience in higher education. Her 
written responses following our hearing were troubling. On student 
debt, Pell grants, reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and job 
training efforts, her responses were vague and offered no vision for 
issues that are critical to millions of Americans. When asked about 
for-profit colleges, which have had a history of taking advantage of 
students, including but not limited to our veterans, Mrs. DeVos said 
she was agnostic--that is her word--about the tax filing status of 
higher education institutions. That is just not acceptable.
  I believe we should be expanding Pell grants. We should lower the 
interest rates on student loans. We should be expanding apprenticeship 
and job training opportunities. We need to crack down on predatory for-
profit colleges.
  We need an Education Secretary who understands and is able to focus 
on higher education, and it is clear that Mrs. DeVos does not have that 
experience or focus.
  Mr. President, our Founders understood that public education for our 
citizens was essential to the functioning of our democracy. In 1786, 
Thomas Jefferson wrote:

       I think by far, the most important bill in our whole code 
     is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No 
     other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of 
     freedom, and happiness.

  Generation after generation has worked to build on those ideals, 
including, as we do that work, more and more Americans in the process 
and creating a system that gives all students an opportunity to 
succeed.
  We need an Education Secretary who is committed to upholding that 
principle, not rolling our progress back, and we should all be working 
together to ensure that we have strong neighborhood public schools, not 
dismantling them.
  I join with my colleagues here today and the thousands from my State 
who have made their voices heard. We need just one more vote to defeat 
this nomination and to make clear that the Senate truly values our 
Nation's public schools.
  I surely hope that there is another Senator willing to break with the 
President and vote against this woefully unqualified nominee.
  We all have learned in this wonderful country of ours, with each 
generation, as we include more and more people who have been 
marginalized, left out, who weren't counted, that when we include them, 
we certainly honor their freedom and dignity--important and sufficient, 
of course, in its own right. Then when we do that, we also unleash the 
talent and energy of everyone, and that strengthens us all, helps us 
thrive, helps our economy grow, and makes sure that America not only 
leads but deserves to.
  It is our job in the Senate to listen to the thousands speaking up 
for our children and for the public education system that serves all 
Americans.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DONNELLY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DONNELLY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the nominee 
for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. I am here not only to 
reiterate my concerns about Mrs. DeVos but to share some of the letters 
and emails I have received from Hoosiers about her nomination.
  Every Hoosier and every American deserves access to a quality 
education. It prepares our students to enter the workforce, to secure 
good-paying jobs, and to succeed. As I have said, after reviewing the 
record of Mrs. DeVos, I believe she lacks the commitment to public 
education needed to effectively lead the Department of Education. I am 
deeply concerned that she will not focus on priorities important to 
Hoosier families: expanding access to early childhood education, 
improving our public schools, and addressing increasing student loan 
debt.
  Now I want to share some of the concerns I have heard from people all 
across Indiana about Betsy DeVos.
  A current undergraduate student at Purdue wrote to me, urging me to 
vote against Betsy DeVos. The student wrote as follows:

       I am concerned that she will cause major damage not only to 
     our public K-12 schools, of which I graduated from, but also 
     to federal student aid programs, which allow many of my 
     fellow students and I to attend our nation's fantastic public 
     universities.

  A mother of three children in Fishers wrote:

       I believe our democracy needs well-funded and accountable 
     public schools for all. Mrs. DeVos demonstrates zero interest 
     in supporting strong public education. For the future of our 
     children, our democracy, and our standing in the global 
     economic system, I ask that you vote against Mrs. DeVos.

  A soon-to-be college graduate who is pursuing a career in public 
education wrote:


[[Page 1906]]

       I will be graduating from Indiana Wesleyan University in 
     Marion. I have spent the past semester student teaching at a 
     local school district in Gas City, IN.
       One of the largest reasons that I wanted to embrace a 
     career in public education is to push students to see their 
     potential, just as I had a teacher do the same for me. 
     Teaching is not simply facilitating learning, but rather it 
     is taking the time to fully invest in the students. Getting 
     to know their students, listening to what they have to say, 
     and using the resources presented to best prepare students to 
     succeed.
       I have been able to see this firsthand and put this into 
     practice as I have been in three different school districts 
     throughout my time at Indiana Wesleyan University. . . . As a 
     soon-to-be teacher in the state of Indiana, I ask you to 
     consider voting no for the nomination of Betsy DeVos for 
     Secretary of Education.
       I chose this path as it directly impacted me, and I want to 
     see students find success. With the right reform, we can see 
     this happen, but with the suggested reforms of Betsy DeVos, 
     we will not be able to help students succeed.

  Here's another story. This one is from Muncie.

       As a mother and public education advocate, I am writing to 
     request that you vote no to the appointment of Betsy DeVos as 
     Secretary of Education. As you are aware, there are many 
     challenges facing education in the United States. . . . Ms. 
     DeVos' track record in the state of Michigan would be 
     devastating to the country as a whole if she were to be given 
     the position of Secretary of Education. For the sake of my 
     children, their dedicated teachers and children across the 
     nation, I respectfully request your ``no'' vote to her 
     appointment.

  A woman in Zionsville wrote as follows:

       I feel that the DeVos agenda plans a dangerous voucher 
     program that robs public schools of money and allows 
     unprecedented support of K-12 programs with opaque standards, 
     curriculum and accountability. In Indiana we have struggled 
     with the skills gap and graduating students that are prepared 
     for the available workforce positions. . . . I beg you to 
     speak out against the appointment of Ms. DeVos as Secretary 
     of Education.

  Hoosiers have the right to an educational system that strives for 
high standards, transparency, and success, and I do not believe the 
DeVos model will be able to deliver on any front.
  A retired special education teacher who taught in Mishawaka for 24 
years wrote:

       I implore you to vote ``no'' on the confirmation of Betsy 
     DeVos as Secretary of Education. Her selection by Donald 
     Trump was clearly an attempt to further dismantle the public 
     school system in the United States. The poor, the 
     disadvantaged, and the disabled would suffer great 
     educational setbacks with her as Secretary of Education.

  A woman in West Lafayette wrote:

       As a future special education teacher, I find it horrifying 
     that [Ms. DeVos] seems to be unaware of the IDEA Act, which 
     protects the rights of millions of children with 
     disabilities. It is completely unacceptable that our country 
     should have someone in charge of education who is unaware of 
     this monumental law. Education is so important for the future 
     of this country and everyone deserves equal opportunity to 
     get a good education. . . . This is why I ask you to please 
     vote no for DeVos.

  In a letter from Greenwood, a woman wrote:

       As a mother of two children, one with severe disabilities, 
     please know I do not support Betsy DeVos as Secretary of 
     Education. I can only hope that you will bear with me as I 
     offer the story of my son below.
       My son was born full-term and healthy. From 18 hours until 
     two weeks old, he fought for his life. At two weeks old, a 
     heart defect was discovered. Next was heart surgery, 
     recovery, and he was home at exactly one month old. Saying we 
     were ill-prepared for the future would be an understatement, 
     to say the least.
       We had no way of knowing the repair to his heart would not 
     also repair all the damage to his brain and body. He was 
     eventually gifted multiple diagnoses: cerebral palsy, 
     congenital heart disease, significant mental and physical 
     disabilities and severe GERD. To match the diagnoses, he was 
     also provided coordinating medical equipment: wheelchair, 
     communication device, standing equipment, a special seating 
     device, feeding pump, and leg braces.
       Skip ahead to today and you'll discover a 15-year-old doing 
     his absolute best to find his place in this quick-paced 
     world. It took a long time, but over the past 3 to 4 years, 
     he mastered his communication device and has shown he is 
     capable of learning and understanding.
       While it took all this time for him to show us, it took the 
     relentless dedication of very special teachers to really make 
     it happen. His teachers worked tirelessly to develop 
     extremely specific Individualized Education Plans for him. I 
     am certain without the Individuals with Disabilities Act and 
     Free Appropriate Public Education, he would not have achieved 
     his current level of learning. I also feel his teachers would 
     not have been able to get him to this level without the right 
     educational tools in our public schools.
       I wanted you to feel my emotions and how difficult his life 
     truly is. Please don't make his education any harder than it 
     already has been.

  A former public schoolteacher in Indianapolis wrote:

       I watched all of Betsy DeVos's Senate confirmation hearing. 
     As the minutes churned by fear, fury, and grief built within 
     me. I will not sit back and watch as a nominee for Secretary 
     of Education prepares to take the helm who does not commit to 
     protecting children in public schools. I hope you stand with 
     me to firmly reject Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. 
     We must commit our care, our love, and our attention to 
     upholding the promise that all kids deserve a shot at success 
     through education.
       These kids are our future, and we owe it to them to lead 
     wisely. Unfortunately, Ms. DeVos will not lead us to that 
     future.

  A mom in Evansville wrote:

       I have one child in college and two others in public 
     elementary schools. My children have received and are getting 
     very good education in public school and are in advanced 
     classes. I am very concerned about the appointment of a woman 
     who has been advocating against our public school system for 
     years. We must do better for our children. Please fight for 
     our public schools and our children, and do everything in 
     your power to keep Betsy DeVos from becoming our Secretary of 
     Education.

  This is just a small sampling of the letters and emails I have 
received from Hoosiers all over our State who are deeply troubled and 
who are opposed to Betsy DeVos. They wrote to me not as Republicans, 
Democrats, or Independents but as concerned Hoosiers, as moms and dads 
who love their kids. They are worried about an issue we should all be 
able to agree on: the importance of ensuring our children have access 
to a quality education.
  While I said I would vote against Betsy DeVos's nomination, I will 
continue to fight for our public schools, our teachers, and our 
students. I will continue fighting for them because ensuring our 
students have access to good schools and good teachers lays a 
foundation for our students to reach their potential, and it is 
fundamental to their success and in turn our country's success.
  We love our schools, we love our kids, and all we want is the best 
for them and an extraordinary education. That is why I will be voting 
against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.
  Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my postcloture debate time to 
Senator Schumer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York may accept 18 
minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the nominee for the 
Department of Education, Betsy DeVos. I cannot vote for her 
confirmation.
  The mission of the Department of Education, as mentioned, ``is to 
promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness 
by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.'' The 
Department achieves this by establishing policies on Federal financial 
aid for education and distributing as well as monitoring those funds, 
collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research, 
focusing national attention on key educational issues, prohibiting 
discrimination, and ensuring equal access to education. After 
considering that mission, I do not believe Betsy DeVos should be the 
next Secretary of Education.
  Surely we can agree that every child in the United States should have 
access to a first-rate education to ensure a chance of a good job and 
good pay. I know this from my own life experiences and, in particular, 
the impact that a good teacher can have on a young child. You see, my 
first grade

[[Page 1907]]

teacher, Mrs. Frances Wilson, God rest her soul, attended my law school 
graduation. I would not be standing here were it not for the education 
I received, and I know that to be true for so many of our colleagues in 
the Senate.
  After I reviewed Betsy DeVos's nomination, including her record and 
confirmation testimony, and after speaking with teachers and students 
and parents from across California, it is clear she does not understand 
the importance or the impact of a public school teacher like Mrs. 
Frances Wilson.
  Why? Well, first and foremost, our country needs a Secretary of 
Education who has demonstrated basic competency when it comes to issues 
facing children. They just need to know what they are talking about. 
When questioned in the hearing by my colleague Senator Franken, it was 
clear Mrs. DeVos didn't know the difference between two basic theories 
of testing: proficiency and growth. This, in fact, is one of the 
biggest debates occurring in the education community today, and she was 
unaware of the significance of the nuances and the difference between 
the two. As we know, proficiency essentially asks whether a student has 
a basic competency or understanding of a subject; looking at a child 
and asking: Is that third grader reading at third grade reading level?
  Growth. It is a question of whether a student is progressing from 
year to year or asking if a third grader who started their year reading 
at first grade level can now read at second grade level. Has there been 
progress? This debate will define how we are judging schools across the 
country, and her lack of knowledge and fluency demonstrates her 
complete lack of experience, understanding, and curiosity about one of 
the hottest issues in modern education.
  Now let's talk about guns in schools. At first, she at best showed 
ambivalence toward gun-free school zones, but it gets better. She went 
on to say that she does not have any questions, and that without any 
questions, she does not believe you need guns in schools. Then she went 
on to say, well, but we need guns in schools, yes, because grizzly 
bears may pose a significant threat to the safety of our children and 
perhaps their education.
  I say Ms. DeVos poses a far greater threat to public education.
  Let's talk about title IX. Another moment in her hearing is when the 
nominee refused to commit to actually enforcing title IX. Now, let's be 
clear that title IX was brought into being because our country had a 
rampant policy of discrimination against women in our education system. 
For example, women were not being admitted to the University of 
Virginia. Even Luci Baines Johnson, the daughter of President Johnson, 
was barred admission to Georgetown University after she got married 
because it was common perception at that point in time that if she was 
married, then that is what she should pursue. She should pursue a 
career in the home and could not be capable of doing that as well as 
working outside the home. Title IX is a law that guarantees women and 
girls the right to a safe education, free from discrimination.
  Let's be clear how title IX helps today. It is title IX that required 
universities to prioritize a safe environment for girls--safe from 
abuse and sexual assault. We know this is a real issue. In fact, the 
Department of Education estimates that one in five women has been 
sexually assaulted during her college years.
  As attorney general of California, I was proud to bring together 
colleges and local law enforcement agencies to create protocols for 
investigating and prosecuting sexual assaults. It has helped schools 
and law enforcement implement changes to California law to better 
protect survivors of sexual assault. I championed new methods to allow 
California to process rape kits and clear a longstanding backlog of 
rape kits in the State crime labs. I fought to ensure that survivors 
have the support they need and that their attackers face swift 
accountability and consequences for their crimes.
  There is no question that ending campus sexual assault should be a 
moral imperative for our country, and it should be a priority for the 
next Secretary of Education of the United States. For that reason, it 
is unfortunate--and, yes, troubling--that Mrs. DeVos will not guarantee 
enforcement of title IX.
  Then let's talk about the Individuals with Disabilities Education 
Act, or IDEA. I know my colleague Senator Hassan has spoken extensively 
about this. This act has been around for decades--four decades, to be 
exact. Before it existed, we were not prioritizing these children. We 
did not give them the services they needed. We had written off a whole 
population of our children. When asked by my colleague Maggie Hassan 
about this piece of legislation, the nominee showed a complete lack of 
knowledge about how it is implemented. That is simply unacceptable. We 
cannot go back to a time when we wrote off a whole population of 
people, and it cannot only be the parents of those children--but all of 
us, as the adults of a society and a country--who look out for our most 
vulnerable children.
  Then, let's talk about for-profit colleges, which I know something 
about since I had to sue one of the biggest for-profit colleges, which 
was defrauding students as well as taxpayers. I know about the reality 
of abuses of for-profit colleges, and I applaud my colleague Elizabeth 
Warren, who asked whether or how she would protect against waste, 
fraud, and abuse at for-profit colleges. She asked this of the nominee, 
and it was troubling to see that the nominee was equivocal at best.
  Now, let's talk about the nominee's record as it relates to the 
children of her home State of Michigan. Since the growth of charter 
schools, Michigan has gone from performing higher than average on the 
National Assessment of Educational Progress in the year 2000 to below 
average by the year 2015. A 2015 Federal review found an ``unreasonably 
high'' number of charters in Michigan which were among the bottom 5 
percent of schools nationwide. According to a report from Chalkbeat, an 
education publication, when the Michigan legislature attempted to add 
oversight for both charter schools and traditional public schools in 
Detroit, the nominee's family opposed the measures and poured $1.45 
million in the legislature's campaign coffers--an average of $25,000 a 
day for 7 weeks. The oversight measures, she is happy to say, never 
made their way into the legislation. We cannot have someone who wants 
to lead our highest Department of Education who does not support the 
importance of oversight, of making sure that the children are getting 
the benefit of their bargain.
  According to data released from the Michigan Association of Public 
School Academies in 2015, only 17 percent of Detroit charter school 
students were rated proficient in math, compared to 13 percent of 
students in traditional public schools. Even Eli Broad, a great 
Californian and strong supporter of dramatic education reforms, has 
expressed strong concerns about the nominee's nomination. That should 
tell us all something.
  Now let's talk about the impact on California. During the campaign, 
President Trump said he would take $20 billion from existing Federal 
education programs--which, by the way, is more than half of the 
Department's budget for K-12 education--and instead put that money into 
a voucher-like system. The President also committed to getting rid of 
the Department of Education in its entirety, which would put half a 
million teachers out of work. The nominee has committed to working with 
him on these plans.
  Let's be clear. This plan would be devastating for public schools, 
including the schools in California that serve over 6 million students. 
This also means California students could lose $2.3 billion in Federal 
education funding, which could end critical programs. For example, the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act serves thousands of 
California's disabled students and serves them well. But his plan would 
slash $1.3 billion in Federal funding--money that our children rely on. 
The Trump proposal to cut the Department of Education budget would also

[[Page 1908]]

harm California's students. Some $3.8 million in Pell grants for 
California students could be lost, 43,000 or more teacher positions in 
California could be eliminated, and $8.96 billion in student loans 
could be at risk for California's college students.
  The bottom line is this--fewer teachers, fewer resources for students 
and parents, and less aid to make college affordable. Maybe one school 
will cut their after-school program or stop teaching the arts, or it 
doesn't have a guidance counselor or decides they will just let class 
size balloon because they don't have enough teachers. We know that is 
not good enough for any of us.
  There is a clear connection between public education and public 
safety. When I was the district attorney of San Francisco, there was a 
rash of homicides one year. All of us in a position of leadership were 
rightly concerned, and we did the predictable and the right thing: We 
figured out how to put more cops on the street, we looked at our gang 
intervention strategies, and we figured out very predictable and good 
ways of reacting to these crimes after they occurred.
  But I asked a question. I asked a member of my staff: Do an 
assessment and tell me who are these homicide victims? In particular, 
who are the homicide victims under the age of 25? The reason I asked 
that question is pretty simple. There were just a lot of them. Sure 
enough, the data came back to me. It included the fact that, of the 
homicide victims under the age of 25, 94 percent were high school 
dropouts.
  Over the years, I have taken a closer look at this issue. I have 
learned that 82 percent of the prisoners in the United States are high 
school dropouts. I have learned that an African American man who is a 
high school dropout between the age of 30 and 34 is two-thirds as 
likely to be in jail, have been in jail, or dead. There is a direct 
connection between what we do or do not do in our public education 
systems and the price we all pay in terms of our public safety. I say 
to everyone concerned: There are good reasons to care about the 
education of children. If nothing else, be concerned about why you have 
to have three padlocks on your front door. If we don't educate our 
children in our public school system, we all pay the price.
  Mrs. DeVos's agenda means fewer teachers and resources and worse 
schools. Fundamentally, her lack of understanding of the rights 
teachers have today, the rights parents have today, and the rights 
students have today mean one thing: She cannot--and will not--uphold 
the law if she does not understand the law. Her testimony has made 
clear that she does not understand IDEA, she does not understand 
initiatives like gun-free zones in schools, and she does not understand 
the history or the need for title IX.
  If Betsy DeVos gets her way and cuts funding for public schools, that 
means fewer teachers. If she does what she did in Michigan, that will 
mean poor outcomes with fewer high school graduates. What we know is 
that these are the kinds of policies that prevent us from actually 
achieving all that we know we can be as a country, which is about 
paying attention to all the members of our society, and, in particular, 
our children, and investing in them with the education they so richly 
deserve so they can one day stand in this Chamber as a Member of the 
Senate, doing the best of what we know we can do as a country.
  Simply put, I will say this. It is clear from her testimony that 
Betsy DeVos has not done her homework. She hasn't done her homework in 
terms of preparing for the job, and she did not do her homework in 
terms of preparing for her hearing. I say that right now the Senate 
must do our job, we must do our homework, and we must refuse to confirm 
her as the next Secretary of Education.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wish to begin by congratulating our new 
Senator from California for her first speech in the Chamber. I know it 
is not her first official speech, but she is here on this important 
night to talk about the state of public education in this country and 
this confirmation process. So I thank her for her remarks. I also want 
to thank the ranking member of the Education Committee of the Senate, 
Senator Murray from Washington State, who is here tonight as well. I 
know she has been here all day today and was here all day on Friday as 
well, because the set of issues we are discussing are so important.
  As I sat here listening to the Senator from California, I was 
thinking about the work we have done recently on the committee on which 
we both serve--the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--
with the leadership of Chairman Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, 
and Ranking Member Senator Murray, from Washington State, to pass a new 
reauthorization of No Child Left Behind--a bill that if you said: Let's 
have a rally on the steps of the Capitol to keep No Child Left Behind 
the same, not a single person in the United States would have shown up 
for that rally. It took this body 7 years--7 years after we were 
supposed to reauthorize No Child Left Behind--to actually do the work. 
But when we did the work, we were able to get it through the committee 
once unanimously. This committee has on it, among other people, Senator 
Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Senator Rand Paul from the Commonwealth 
of Kentucky. They seldom agree on anything, but they agreed on that 
bill. We got it out of the committee almost unanimously, and then 
passed it on the floor of the Senate with over 80 votes. It passed with 
a huge bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, and it was 
signed by the President. It was 7 years too late, but we were able to 
do it in a bipartisan way--which is what education issues should always 
require. It is a shame that tonight we are here with a partisan divide 
because of the selection President Trump has made to lead the 
Department of Education.
  So I just want to say thank you again to Senator Murray for her 
leadership.
  Since our first days before we founded this country, education has 
been an American value. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, 
colonists recognized their collective responsibility to educate their 
children. They wrote into law that children, both wealthy and poor, 
must be taught to read and write, and to learn a skill, like 
blacksmithing, weaving, or shipbuilding, to secure their economic 
independence. As democracy took root in early America, public education 
became not just an ideal but an imperative. An enlightened public, the 
Founders believed, was essential to self-government.
  Thomas Jefferson wrote that we must ``educate and inform the whole 
mass of the people. . . . They are the only sure reliance for the 
preservation of our liberty.''
  Benjamin Franklin believed: ``The good education of Youth has been 
esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the 
Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths.''
  With education, the common man would be able to select leaders wisely 
and fight back against the tyrannical instincts of those in power. He 
would be able to understand, maintain, and protect his rights, so that 
government could not usurp authority and devolve into despotism.
  In a country ``in which the measures of Government receive their 
impression so immediately from the sense of the Community as in ours,'' 
George Washington explained, ``knowledge . . . is proportionally 
essential.''
  This set of beliefs represented a fundamental break from the 
aristocratic ways of the old world. A republic that was ``for the 
people'' and ``by the people'' required an educated people.
  With this new world also came a new conviction that individuals could 
determine their own future, that their

[[Page 1909]]

birth or circumstance no longer limited their potential. This 
foundational idea grew to become the American dream: Every child, 
regardless of who her parents are or where she came from, could achieve 
an education and grow up to achieve a better life.
  Over time, as our Republic became more and more democratic, as the 
right to vote and lead was secured by African Americans and women, 
education became the fundamental means by which Americans sought to 
secure their liberty and their equality.
  Perfecting our Union by expanding education has not come without 
struggle, but we have often succeeded because we have recognized that 
symbiotic relationship among the needs of our country and the success 
of individual Americans and our aspiration to move forward. This 
included the need for a universally literate workforce in the 1830s and 
the creation of Horace Mann's Common School Movement; the demand at the 
turn of the 20th century to replace out-of-date Latin schools with 
progressive high schools that prepared students for the emerging 
industrial workforce; the challenge of providing World War II veterans 
with a career path and the creation of the GI bill for college 
education; and the need to tear down the barriers of Jim Crow school 
systems in the 1950s and 1960s.
  Too often, as a country, we confronted these challenges too late and 
at the tragic expense of our fellow American's potential. ``With all 
deliberate speed'' has proven not fast enough, especially for children 
living in places like the Mississippi Delta and South Central Los 
Angeles.
  At each of these turning points, we have asked for more from our 
public schools. To their credit, our educators--teachers, specialists, 
and principals--have risen to the challenge, many times much sooner 
than the rest of us. They have helped us build a nation admired for our 
forward progress, for opportunity, and for equality.
  That is the American ideal from our founding until today. I come to 
the floor tonight with a sense of urgency because our generation is at 
risk of being the first American generation to leave less opportunity 
to our children than we inherited. If we do that, we will have broken a 
fundamental American promise to our children.
  In our Nation, education is supposed to be at the heart of 
opportunity, but today our education system fails far too many kids. 
Schools that once were engines of opportunity and democracy are now too 
often traps for intergenerational poverty.
  As a result, only 3 out of 10 children born to very low-income 
families in the United States will make it into the middle class or 
higher. Only 4 out of 100 will make it to the top 20 percent of income 
earners. Already, the United States has less social mobility than at 
least 12 other developed countries--among them, Canada, Japan, and 
Germany.
  In America, children growing up in poverty here hear 30 million fewer 
words than their more affluent peers by the time they reach 
kindergarten. In fourth grade, only one in four of our students in 
poverty is proficient in math, and fewer than that can read at grade 
level. As few as 9 will receive a bachelor's degree by age 25.
  As a nation, we are falling behind the rest of the world. When George 
Bush, the son, became President in 2000, we led the world in college 
graduates. Today we are 16th in the world. American 15-year-olds score 
lower than their peers in 14 countries in reading, 36 countries in 
math, and 18 in science.
  Much of the rest of the developed and developing world is figuring 
out how to produce more and more educated citizens, while the United 
States is standing still and therefore falling behind. We must refuse 
to accept outcomes that are a tragedy for our children, a threat to our 
economy, and an immeasurable risk to our democracy.
  To make change, we need to stop treating America's children as if 
they belong to someone else. To meet our children's needs, we must 
invent a 21st century approach to education, a system for the delivery 
of free, high-quality education built for the future, not for the past.
  We must have the courage to shed old ways of thinking, abandon 
commitments to outdated approaches, and explore new ideas. This 
reenvisioned system must focus like a laser on what is best for kids, 
not what is convenient for adults. It must be comprehensive and 
integrated from early childhood to postsecondary education.
  A 21st century system of public education must set high expectations, 
demand rigor, and create meaningful accountability. This system must 
embrace different kinds of schools and create a culture that is focused 
on continuously learning from each other--among traditional, charter, 
and innovation schools, and across districts, cities, and States.
  We need to change fundamentally how we prepare, recruit, place, 
train, retain, and pay teachers and school leaders. That entire system 
belongs to a labor market that discriminates against women and said you 
have two professional choices: one is being a teacher and one is being 
a nurse. So why don't you come teach Julius Caesar every year for 30 
years of your life in the Denver Public Schools, where we are going to 
pay you a wage far lower than anybody else in your college class would 
accept.
  Those days are gone. We had discrimination in the labor market that 
actually subsidized our school system because very often the brightest 
students in their class--very often women--had no other career options 
and therefore were willing to teach.
  That whole system needs to be transformed in the 21st century. We 
have 1.5 million new teachers whom we have to hire over the next 6 to 8 
years in this country, and we have no theory about how to hire them or 
how to keep them. Fifty percent of the people are leaving the 
profession now in the first 5 years.
  This new system of public education should embrace technology and 
personalized learning. We must create space for innovation in school 
autonomy, and we must also provide choice to parents and kids, but our 
goal is not, and should not be, school choice for choice's sake.
  For a youngster in a low-income family, there is no difference 
between being forced to attend a lousy school and being given the 
chance to choose among five lousy schools. That is no choice at all. It 
is certainly not a meaningful one. The goal is, and must be, to offer 
high-quality education at every public school so parents can choose 
among grade schools in their neighborhood and throughout their cities 
and towns.
  We must refuse to accept the false choice I have heard over and over 
again during this confirmation process that you either support school 
choice in whatever form or you defend the status quo, just as we must 
reject the idea that you cannot support public schools and advocate for 
change.
  This old rhetoric and manufactured political division will not work 
for our kids. We need to rise above the narrow, small politics that 
consume our attention and permit and prevent us from making tough 
choices. Instead, we need to recognize that a 21st century education 
can and should look very different than a 19th century education or a 
20th century education, and no matter what approach or method of 
delivery, it must be high quality.
  The good news is, we know it is possible to reverse course and create 
meaningful change. Several cities around the country have already begun 
creating roadmaps to this 21st century approach. Denver is one of them.
  In Denver, we made a deal--create a public choice system that 
authorizes charters, creates innovation schools, and strengthens 
traditional schools. We empowered schools through autonomy and worked 
to create a culture of shared learning and innovation focused on all 
ships rising. We demanded quality, and we implemented strong 
accountability. High-performing schools were rewarded, replicated, and 
expanded. Low-performing schools had to be improved or be shut down.
  We made tough decisions. We closed schools. I sat in living rooms, 
classrooms, and gymnasiums with parents urging them to demand more from 
the school district, even if it meant that their child had to go to a 
different

[[Page 1910]]

school. Along with concerned citizens, teachers, and principals, I went 
door-to-door to enroll kids in new schools.
  Denver created innovative teacher and school leadership policies. We 
tried to rethink the tired model of the last century and create a new 
career for this one. That is why today in Denver you will find teachers 
teaching other teachers and being paid for it, knowing that their job 
is not only to educate their students but also to improve the honorable 
craft of teaching so our kids can achieve even more.
  We used the levers of Federal law, strong accountability, and civil 
rights protections as the backbone of change. We cannot have made the 
changes we did had it not been for the national demand for improvement 
in our schools--the civil rights impulse that underlies the Federal 
involvement in public education, as well as the courage of our 
community to demand something better for our children. Denver has begun 
to see the results of hard work.
  Over the last decade, Denver Public Schools students' achievement 
growth increased faster than the State's in both math and English. This 
outcome was achieved by students qualifying for free and reduced-price 
lunch and also students not qualifying for free and reduced-price 
lunch. Latino and African-American students' achievement in English and 
math grew faster than their counterparts' throughout the State.
  Sixty-one percent more students graduated in 2016 than in 2006. We 
have a long way to go, but I would suspect that if we could say of 
every urban school district in America that we are graduating 60 
percent more students this year than we were a decade ago, we would be 
feeling a lot better about where we are headed as a country. In Denver, 
over that time, the overall ontime graduation rate increased almost 30 
points, and the ontime graduation rate for Latino students has doubled 
since 2007.
  Since 2006, Denver Public Schools' enrollment has increased--many 
cities have lost enrollment--over 25 percent, making it the fastest 
growing urban school district in America, partly because Denver has 
grown but also because parents and kids and families have now found 
schools that are responsive to their families' needs and supportive of 
their children.
  I am the first to say, and I always will be the first to say, that we 
still have a lot of work to do to make sure the ZIP Code Denver's 
children are born into doesn't determine the education they receive. 
But cities like Denver are moving in the right direction. Now we need 
to move a nation in the right direction.
  Tonight, as we stand here in this marbled Chamber among these statues 
that tie us to our past, I am thinking of our future. I am thinking of 
the millions of poor children across time zones our Founders could not 
have imagined, heading home after a long day at school, shifting their 
backpacks of books to find a comfortable spot, sharpening pencils for 
math and pastels for art, clearing a space on a busy dinner table for 
homework. I am thinking about children teaching other children, older 
brothers and sisters teaching their younger siblings, expecting that 
they will have more opportunity than their parents. I am remembering 
the naturalization ceremony I attended just last Friday at Dunn 
Elementary School in Fort Collins, CO, where Kara Roth's fifth grade 
class welcomed 26 new Americans from 13 countries to the United States. 
I am thinking about teachers and principals and students--while we are 
here speaking--who are up tonight, planning for tomorrow, and hoping 
for a future that allows them to review at home before they teach 
tomorrow the best lessons for teaching the productive and destructive 
forces of volcanoes, what Scout learns in ``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' or 
the mathematical reasoning that calls on us to invert the second 
fraction when we divide. I am imagining a country that fulfills our 
generational responsibility by providing quality early childhood 
education to every American family who wants it--a K-12 school for 
every child to which every Senator would be proud to send his or her 
child or grandchild and access to college and skills training that 
prepare students for economic success without shackling them to a 
lifetime of debt.
  All of that leads me to comment briefly on President Trump's 
nomination for Education Secretary. I have no doubt that Mrs. DeVos 
sincerely cares about children. It is not her fault that President 
Trump nominated her. So let me be clear that I am addressing the 
President and not Mrs. DeVos when I say that this nomination is an 
insult to school children and their families, to teachers and 
principals, and to communities fighting to improve their public schools 
all across this country.
  Even with the limited questioning allowed at the education committee 
hearing, it quickly became clear that Mrs. DeVos lacks the experience 
and the understanding to be an effective Secretary of Education. The 
bipartisan progress of American education achieved over the last 15 
years was predicated on a deep commitment to three principles: 
transparency, accountability and equity.
  Mrs. DeVos's testimony and public record failed to establish her 
commitment or competence to protect any of these foundational 
principles. Her ``let a thousand flowers bloom'' approach asks American 
school children to take a huge step backward to a world without the 
high expectations and transparency that we need to give parents and 
taxpayers the information they deserve on how our schools are 
performing. Those high expectations, paired with the clear commitment 
to accountability, ensure that our successful schools should be 
replicated and our struggling schools should be held accountable for 
improvement, regardless of whether it is a choice school or a district 
school.
  Finally, we know that the Secretary of Education holds the sacred job 
of ensuring that every child in America gets the resources and the 
support they deserve, regardless of their income, background, or 
educational needs. This commitment to equity is at the core of the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Mrs. DeVos has shown no 
evidence of her commitment to be the torch bearer for both excellence 
and equity. Her ideology and dogmatic approach communicates a lack of 
understanding and appreciation of the challenges we face and the depths 
of solutions they demand.
  A commitment to choice without a commitment to quality serves 
ideology rather than improvement, and a commitment to competition 
without a commitment to equity would forsake our democratic ideal that 
a free, high quality public education must open the doors of 
opportunity for all. For the first generation of students to whom that 
promise feels elusive, they deserve an Education Secretary who has the 
courage, competence, and commitment to orient our mighty education 
system to build opportunity for all. Mrs. DeVos shows none of those 
skills, and our young people cannot afford to wait 4 years for their 
chance at the American dream.
  Millions of Americans recognize this, which is why this nomination 
has generated more controversy than any other. I look forward to 
working with anyone--as I have over the years, including even Mrs. 
DeVos--anyone interested in improving our children's opportunities and 
taking seriously the future of our democracy. But I will not support 
her nomination. I will vote no on this nomination and urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, over the course of this debate, over the 
last 9 hours, plus 6 hours on Friday of the 30 hours that we have on 
this, many Senators have come to the floor to talk about their concerns 
about the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education.
  There are open questions about her extensive financial entanglements.

[[Page 1911]]

There are open questions and a clear concern about her lack of 
understanding of basic education issues. We have heard that time and 
again, as well as the many ways in which her vision for our education 
system is really at odds with where families and communities nationwide 
want us to go.
  But let me take just a moment to focus on one major concern in 
particular. It is a public health threat that I know is deeply 
concerning for families and communities across this country, and that 
is the epidemic of sexual violence on our college campuses. One out of 
five women and 1 out of 71 men are sexually assaulted while in college. 
In 2013 alone, college campuses reported 5,000 forcible sex offenses, 
and a recent study indicated that number could be much greater.
  There should be no question that sexual violence on our campuses is a 
great, widespread, and unacceptable problem--one that I expect any 
incoming Secretary of Education to be informed about, to be concerned 
about, and committed unequivocally to confronting head-on.
  Much of the discussion so far has been about the commitment of a 
Secretary of Education to our K-12 system. Serious concerns have been 
raised, but it is important to know in this debate that the Secretary 
of Education also has responsibility over our higher education 
institutions.
  In our hearing, Betsy DeVos actually agreed with me that President 
Trump's horrifically offensive leaked comments from 2005 describe 
sexual assault. She was clear. But I was deeply disappointed, to say 
the least, in Mrs. DeVos's responses to simple questions about whether 
she would seek to continue the Obama administration's work to protect 
students and stand with survivors. When she was asked whether she would 
uphold the guidance issued under the Obama administration to hold 
schools accountable for stronger, more effective investigations of 
sexual assault, she wouldn't commit to that. She would not commit to 
that. When I asked her whether she would continue key transparency 
measures, like weekly public reports on active investigations into 
potentially mishandled sexual assault cases, she dodged the question.
  These answers are especially concerning given that Mrs. DeVos has 
gone so far as to donate to an organization dedicated to rolling back 
efforts to better support survivors and increase accountability. Let me 
tell you that again. Mrs. DeVos has gone so far as to donate to an 
organization dedicated to rolling back efforts to better support 
survivors and increased accountability.
  Let's be clear. The epidemic of sexual assaults on our college 
campuses means that in States across the country, students' basic human 
rights are being violated. I am deeply proud to see the work that has 
been done on this issue over the last few years. Survivors have bravely 
stepped up to make clear they expect far better from their schools and 
their communities. By speaking out, by being courageous and speaking 
out, they have shown other survivors they are not alone.
  Key university leaders have made fighting campus sexual assault a top 
priority by developing new partnerships in their communities and 
prioritizing prevention. New measures to increase transparency and 
awareness went into effect in 2013 thanks to the reauthorization of the 
Violence Against Women Act. These are hard-won steps forward on an 
issue where some Democrats and Republicans have finally been able to 
find common ground.
  There is much more to do. The next Department of Education should not 
be standing on the sidelines, much less taking us backward on an issue 
that is so critical to student safety on campus.
  So I hope that as my colleagues are listening to the debate here 
today, tonight, and tomorrow, that they consider what Mrs. DeVos's 
leadership at the Department of Education means on this issue, the 
issue of making sure men and women on our college campuses can go there 
to learn and not be worried about being a victim of sexual assault and 
having nowhere to turn and not have the confidence that their voices 
will be taken seriously.
  On another area, nominees for Secretary of Education have largely 
been people, over the past, who were very committed to our students, 
who had long careers dedicated to education, and who were focused on 
keeping public education strong for all of our students and for all of 
our communities.
  Public education is a core principle that our country was founded on, 
that no matter who you are, where you come from, or how much money you 
have, this country is going to make sure all young people get an 
education. That is how our country has been strong in the past. That is 
how our country has to be in the future. Free public education.
  Well, Betsy DeVos is a very different nominee. She has spent her 
career and her fortune rigging the system to privatize and defund 
public education, which will hurt students in communities across our 
country. She is not personally connected to public school--except, by 
the way, through her work over the years trying to tear them down. She 
has committed herself for decades to an extreme ideological goal to 
push students out of our public schools and weaken public education.
  I can talk at length about Betsy DeVos's record of failure and her 
devastating impact on students, but all people really need to do is 
watch her hearing in our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee. Just go back and watch the hearing. This was a hearing that 
people across the country heard about--and for good reason--from local 
newspapers, to local news, to ``The Daily Show,'' to ``The View,'' and 
posts that went viral on social media. A lot of people in our country 
heard Betsy DeVos for the first time in that hearing. They were not 
impressed.
  She refused to rule out slashing investments in our public schools. 
She was confused that Federal law provides protections for students 
with disabilities. She did not understand the basic issues in education 
policy or the debate surrounding whether students should be measured 
based on their proficiency or their growth. She argued, as we have all 
heard, that guns needed to be allowed in schools across the country to 
``protect from grizzlies.'' Even though she was willing to say that 
President Trumps's behavior toward women should be considered sexual 
assault, as I just talked about, she would not commit to actually 
enforcing Federal law protecting women and girls in our schools. Her 
hearing, quite frankly, was a disaster. It was so clear to millions of 
families how little she really understood about education issues.
  I have to tell you, as a former preschool teacher myself and a former 
school board member, someone who got my start in politics fighting for 
strong public schools, as a Senator committed to standing strong for 
public education in America, as a mother and a grandmother who really 
cares deeply about the future of our students and our schools, I know 
that we can and we must do better for our children and our students and 
our parents and our teachers.
  The decision we are making here on whether to confirm Betsy DeVos for 
Education Secretary will help set the course for our public education 
system for years to come. So I hope, again, that our colleagues are 
listening to this debate and thinking about it and not just voting 
rotely on this. This is so important.
  Quite frankly, I am disappointed that our Republican colleagues have 
moved us so fast into this debate. I have been in the Senate a long 
time. I know what the usual practices are when we go through hearings 
and listen to nominees from Presidents who are Republican and Democrat, 
Republican majorities and Democratic majorities. I was here when the 
Senate was 50-50. There are practices we have to make sure that all 
Senators get the information they need so they can make a wise decision 
with their vote for which they will be held accountable.
  Quite frankly, the usual practices here were really being ignored. 
The right thing to do was being ignored. This nominee was jammed 
through like I have seen none other. Corners were

[[Page 1912]]

being cut. The minority was being brushed aside. I really think that is 
wrong.
  Earlier this month, Republicans on the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee scheduled Mrs. DeVos's hearing even though she had 
not yet finished her standard ethics paperwork and even though she had 
not and still, by the way, has not answered my questions about her 
financial disclosures to our committee. In fact, when we started the 
hearing, the Republican chairman, the senior Senator from Tennessee, 
whom I have worked with greatly--we worked together to pass the 
replacement of No Child Left Behind. I have a tremendous amount of 
respect for him. But I was shocked and surprised when he preemptively 
declared that he would be limiting questions for each Senator to just 5 
minutes--a shocking and disappointing breach of committee tradition, 
clearly intended to limit public scrutiny.
  Mrs. DeVos is a billionaire. She has extraordinarily complicated and 
opaque finances, both in her own holdings and those in her immediate 
family. We know that she has invested in education companies, for-
profit companies, for decades. Over 100 conflicts were identified. Her 
ethics paperwork raises questions about the company in which she plans 
to remain invested. She still, by the way, has not fully answered my 
questions about her committee paperwork.
  As I told the Republican chairman at our markup, the process that has 
taken place on Mrs. DeVos's nomination is a massive break in the 
tradition of this body. We should not have had a vote in this committee 
until all Senators had received appropriate responses to reasonable 
questions and until a second hearing was held so that Senators could 
get these serious concerns addressed and do their job scrutinizing the 
nominee.
  Understand, we had a hearing. We were limited to 5 minutes each. And 
we did not have all of the paperwork, so we could not do our homework 
to make sure we were asking the questions we needed that needed to have 
a public debate. So, again, that is another reason I am deeply 
concerned about this nominee. We do not yet know whether there are 
conflicts of interest.
  For a Secretary of Education who wields tremendous power over our K-
12 system and our higher education system--as we all know, there have 
been tremendous questions over the past decade about access to higher 
education; whether you go to college and get the degree you have been 
promised; whether institutes have been responsible and accountable; and 
how we as the Senate and House can come together to make sure that when 
a student takes out a student loan or invests in a higher education 
institution, they know they are getting their money's worth and if 
there are taxpayer dollars involved, that the taxpayers are getting 
their money's worth as well. So conflicts of interest are extremely 
important to this nominee. To this point right now, here we are voting 
tomorrow, and we don't have the answers to those questions.
  So these are just a few things. I have been out here on the floor to 
talk about them. We have heard from many of our other colleagues. It is 
no surprise to me that this has lit a firestorm across the country. 
Having a Secretary of Education, someone who is responsible for our 
children's education--schools are the center of our community. 
Community members own those schools in their minds. This is where they 
send their kids to school, where they have basketball games, music 
concerts. It is where the community comes together. Yes, we all 
complain about public education. Who hasn't? But at the end of day, we 
love our local schools, and we want them to know that the Secretary of 
Education--the highest person in the land to oversee them--has that 
love, too, and is there because they want to make them better, not 
because they want to tear them down.
  So, yes, this nominee has taken off like no other because of her 
hearing, because of her conflicts, because she has attacked and gone 
after basic public education, which so many people are proud of in 
their own communities and want to make better. So I, like everybody 
else, have heard from many of my constituents, more than I can ever 
remember in my entire Senate career. This has ignited a public storm. I 
want to share some stories from my constituents who have reached out 
and urged me to vote against Betsy DeVos because they know better than 
anybody why their school is so important to them, why their teachers 
are so important to them, why their children's public education is so 
important to them.
  One of the major concerns I have continued to hear from my 
constituents about is her disconnect from the working class.
  A woman from Marysville, WA, said: Betsy DeVos, a billionaire 
herself, does not represent the working class and certainly not her 
family experience with public education.
  Betsy DeVos never attended public school or even sent her own 
children to public school.
  In Olympia in my State, an employee at a high-poverty public school 
says she works with some of the most in-need children in the area. She 
is very concerned that Betsy DeVos's push toward a privatized public 
school system would only benefit those in wealthy communities and leave 
her most vulnerable students behind. She believes Betsy DeVos would 
absolutely not look out for their best interests.
  In our rural communities, there is no private school to get that 
voucher and send your kids to. The policies she is pushing only mean 
that those schools will have taxpayer dollars taken away from them to 
send to other kids with vouchers to go to private schools, who live 
nearby or have the additional resources to use those vouchers to go to 
school.
  A teacher in Seattle wrote to me with a story that I can't get out of 
my head. It really inspires me to keep going in this fight. This 
teacher serves preschoolers with special needs who face a number of 
challenges. She teaches at a title I school, where most families are 
low income, and many of them are immigrants and non-native English 
speakers.
  She believes that her children deserve access to the best educators 
out there and that if DeVos's agenda was put in place--a system of 
privatized public education--her students would be failed, because 
without strong public schools, we would fail students who are low 
income or living with disabilities or impacted by trauma or who belong 
to racial or ethnic minorities. She says Betsy DeVos does not have her 
students' best interests in mind, and her students deserve the best, as 
I believe all of our students do, no matter their financial status, 
their race, their religion, or any other difference they might have 
from their peers.
  A mother in North Bend wrote to me expressing her worry that vouchers 
only benefit the wealthy, leaving the middle class and poor without the 
benefit of a good education. Being part of a middle-class family 
herself, she is proud that her first grader is already mastering 
addition and subtraction and is reading and writing sentences all 
because of her local public school.
  My constituent in Auburn said that money and ZIP Code should not 
determine who gets a better education, and she said that Betsy DeVos's 
worrisome policies would make that the case. She is strongly urging me 
to reject a nominee who doesn't look out for those who are the most in 
need.
  A man in Kelso wrote in, saying that the public school system is what 
ensures we all get a good education. It is what gives so many parents 
hope that their child can have an even better life than they had, that 
public education is a great equalizer for everyone to have a chance to 
succeed, and I couldn't agree more.
  Those are just a few of the letters I have gotten from people who are 
worried that the nominee's push for taking public tax dollars and using 
them for private schools and for-profit schools only, robbing our 
public schools of the resources they need, will not be the right choice 
for public education.
  I wanted to share a few other letters from my constituents who wrote 
to me regarding Betsy DeVos's nomination.

[[Page 1913]]

One of them was from Seattle. She emphasized how important it is that 
our Secretary of Education be dedicated to providing a quality 
education to all students and to strengthening our public education 
institutions. She strongly believes that Betsy DeVos will not be that 
kind of Secretary.
  A retired teacher in Federal Way asked me to work as hard as I can to 
protect public education because she believes every child's right to a 
free and quality public education is at risk with Betsy DeVos's 
nomination.
  Many constituents expressed their disbelief that the nominee for 
Secretary of Education has absolutely no experience in public 
education. Her children never even attended a public school.
  One, a teacher in Bellingham, is fearful of an Education Secretary 
who doesn't truly understand what the needs of kids look like today. 
She asked how someone with no experience can be expected to lead our 
country's education system.
  A woman in Puyallup wrote to me, saying that education is the 
greatest gift we can give to our children, and she thinks that 
confirming Betsy DeVos, with her plans to weaken public education, will 
rob so many children of that gift.
  Mr. President, those are just a few of the letters I am getting. 
There are many more, and later this evening, I will be reading from 
some of those letters because they tell the story better than I do.
  I know some of our colleagues are wondering why this woman set off 
such a firestorm when her nomination came up and why so many people are 
calling and writing and rallying and letting their voices be heard.
  It is not easy to rally the public. This came from within. This came 
from many people in this country who understand, as so many of us do, 
that public education and the right to an education, free--free 
education is critical and fundamental and a core philosophy of this 
country that all of us want to be successful and want to be great 
again.
  To have a Secretary of Education who doesn't agree with that, who in 
fact promotes the exact opposite, who has said that our public 
education system is a dead end, who has proposed, promoted, and paid 
for campaigns to take public tax dollars to send to private, for-profit 
schools, that is not what our country was built on. It is not the 
foundation that our forefathers put out in front of us.
  They said: We are going to build a system unlike any other, where no 
matter who you are or where you come from or how much money you have or 
what you look like, in this country, we are going to make sure you get 
an education, a free education, paid for by all of us, to go to school 
in your community and to be who you want to be. That is a dream of this 
country, and we will not stand by and give our votes to a Secretary of 
Education who does not share that philosophy.
  That is why there is a firestorm. That is why parents and teachers 
and students and grandparents and community leaders and superintendents 
from across the country are writing us and asking us to vote no. It is 
not too late. If we have one more Republican who votes no, then we will 
be able to say to the President: Mr. President, we reject this nominee, 
and we ask that you send us one who will work with all of us to make 
sure our public education system is a core principle of this country, 
is valued by this country, and is pursued by the top person in the 
Department of Education, our Secretary of Education. It is not too 
late.
  With that, I have many more letters that I will be reading later. I 
know some of our other colleagues will be over here. Again, I ask 
everyone to stop and think. This is a critical nomination. It has hit a 
chord in our country because people do care. They want our country to 
be strong. They want this country to be great, and they know our public 
education system is an absolutely critical part of that.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. President, I rise this evening in opposition to the nomination of 
Betsy DeVos to be our next Secretary of Education. This is one of the 
most important jobs in our government. The Department of Education 
bears responsibility for making sure that every child in America has 
the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential, which means that the 
Secretary of Education has an enormous amount of power to shape our 
Nation's future. This is not a job for amateurs.
  President Obama's first Secretary of Education was Arne Duncan, who 
had spent 7\1/2\ years building a record of accomplishment as CEO of 
Chicago's public school system, previous to which he had been director 
of a mentoring program and the founder of a charter school.
  When Secretary Duncan stepped down, he was replaced by Dr. John King, 
Jr., the recipient of a doctorate in education administrative practice. 
He had served as Deputy Secretary under Arne Duncan and was previously 
the education commissioner for the State of New York. Each brought to 
the job a background in public education that informed their 
understanding of what students, parents, teachers, and administrators 
need in order to succeed, which brings me to Betsy DeVos.
  There are reasons to be skeptical about Mrs. DeVos's nomination right 
off the bat. As my Republican colleague, Senator Collins of Maine, put 
it: ``The mission of the Department of Education is broad, but 
supporting public education is at its core.''
  Well, in Mrs. DeVos, President Trump sent us a nominee with no 
experience in public education. Mrs. DeVos has never been a public 
school superintendent or a public school principal or a public 
schoolteacher. She has never attended a public school. She has never 
sent a child to a public school. Mrs. DeVos has no formal background in 
education, no classroom experience, and no demonstrated commitment to 
supporting public education whatsoever.
  In fact, Mrs. DeVos has a long history of actively undermining public 
education. She and her family have spent millions of dollars advocating 
for an ideology that would steal funds from public schools in order to 
fund private and religious education. Let's take a moment to talk about 
what that means.
  Mrs. DeVos ran a political action committee called ``All Children 
Matter,'' which spent millions in campaign contributions to promote the 
use of taxpayer dollars for school vouchers. The argument was that 
these vouchers would allow low-income students to leave the public 
school system and attend the private or religious school of their 
family's choice. Mrs. DeVos has described this as ``school choice,'' 
claiming that it would give parents a chance to choose the best school 
for their children, but that is not how it works. In reality, most 
school vouchers don't cover the whole cost of private school tuition, 
nor do they cover additional expenses like transportation, school 
uniforms, and other supplies, which means the vouchers don't create 
more choices for low-income families; they simply subsidize existing 
choices for families who could already afford to pay for private 
school.
  As it happens, we have a real-life test case that we can look at to 
determine whether Mrs. DeVos's argument holds water. Mrs. DeVos heads 
up a voucher program in the State of Indiana, and guess what happened. 
Today, more than half of the students in the Hoosier State who received 
vouchers never actually attended Indiana public schools in the first 
place, which means that their families were already in a position to 
pay for private school. Indeed, vouchers are going to families earning 
as much as $150,000 a year.
  I am sure these families appreciated the extra help, but as of 2015, 
nearly

[[Page 1914]]

half of Indiana's children relied on free and reduced-price lunch 
programs. These are the kids Mrs. DeVos claims would be helped by 
school vouchers; instead, taxpayer dollars were taken away from public 
schools that remain the only choice for these low-income families and 
given to families who could already afford private school, who were 
already sending their kids to private school. That is the reality of 
school vouchers.
  That is why after Mrs. DeVos developed a similar proposal for a 
voucher program in Pennsylvania and an analysis projected that, just 
like in Indiana, the vouchers would mostly benefit kids already 
enrolled in private schools, voters rejected it on multiple occasions. 
Yet Mrs. DeVos and her family continued their fight for school 
vouchers. In fact, she has been such a fervent advocate that her 
political action committee, ``All Children Matter,'' received the 
largest fine for violating election law in Ohio's State history--a $5.3 
million fine that nearly a decade later she still hasn't paid.
  Why do this? The evidence is clear that Mrs. DeVos's voucher 
obsession doesn't help low-income families. Quite to the contrary, it 
represents a serious threat to the public school system--a system that 
as many as 90 percent of the children rely on--but Mrs. DeVos describes 
as ``a dead end.''
  The truth is that Mrs. DeVos's education advocacy isn't really about 
education at all. She describes her goal as follows: to advance God's 
kingdom. Now many families choose to send their children to religious 
schools, and many children receive an excellent education at religious 
schools, but it is the public school system that the Secretary of 
Education is supposed to focus on, and that is not the part that Mrs. 
DeVos and her family have put at the forefront of her advocacy.
  Mrs. DeVos spent a decade serving on the board of the Acton 
Institute, which seeks to infuse religion in public life, beginning 
with public education. She and her family have devoted millions to 
promote the institute's work, including promoting ideas like this:

       We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain 
     independence for Christian schools until we train up a 
     generation of people who know there is no religious 
     neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no 
     neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in 
     constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious 
     order which finally denies the religious liberty of the 
     enemies of God.

  Those are the words of Gary North, a Christian Dominionist for whom 
the Acton Institute serves as a forum.
  Of course, not everyone who believes in the potential of parochial 
schools shares his view, but this is the kind of stuff Mrs. DeVos and 
her family have spent millions and millions of dollars promoting. It is 
fine for someone to hold strong religious views and to advocate for 
those views and to spend their family fortune encouraging others to 
adopt, but it is entirely fair to ask whether the mission of building a 
Bible-based social, political, and religious order is compatible with 
the mission of the Department of Education. So, yes, based on Mrs. 
DeVos's radical ideology, I was skeptical when her nomination was sent 
to the Senate, but I understand that others in this body may not have 
shared my discomfort.
  Within this Chamber we have important differences when it comes to 
education policy and, for that matter, the appropriateness of using 
taxpayer funds to advance God's Kingdom. And do you know what? That is 
fine. But we all have the exact same responsibility when it comes to 
vetting the President's Cabinet nominees.
  Each of us is called upon to determine not just whether we agree with 
the nominee's ideology but whether that nominee is free from relevant 
conflicts of interest and, critically, whether the nominee is 
competent, whether he or she is capable of doing the job. Making that 
call is our job, and that is why we have the process that we have. It 
is why we ask to see the nominee's financial information. It is why we 
ask them to submit written answers to questionnaires about their 
experience and their record. And it is why we have them come to the 
Senate to sit in front of committees and to answer our questions.
  Unfortunately, during her hearing, Mrs. DeVos proved beyond a shadow 
of a doubt not only that her ideology is fundamentally incompatible 
with the mission of the Department of Education but that she is 
fundamentally incompetent to be its leader. Throughout the hearing, she 
was unable to answer basic questions about her views on important 
issues, she was unfamiliar with basic concepts of education policy, and 
she was unwilling to make basic commitments to continue the 
Department's work on behalf of our most vulnerable children.
  Let me give you one example of what I mean. During my 5 minutes of 
questioning, I asked Mrs. DeVos to weigh in on the debate about 
measuring growth versus measuring proficiency. I am going to take a few 
moments right now to make sure that everyone here and everyone watching 
at home understands what this debate is about and just how central it 
is to the future of education policy. The difference between the two 
approaches, proficiency and growth, is very easy to explain.
  Let's say a fifth grade teacher has a student who comes into the 
classroom reading at a second grade level. Over the course of the 
school year, the teacher brings the student up to a fourth grade level. 
If we are measuring growth, we would say: Well, that teacher brought 
that student up two grade levels in 1 year. That teacher is a hero.
  If we are measuring for proficiency, we would say: Well, that student 
is still reading below grade level. That teacher is a failure.
  That is the difference between measuring growth and measuring 
proficiency. It took me all of 30 seconds to explain that, but I could 
spend all night talking about what this debate means for students, 
teachers, school leaders, and our entire education system.
  Everyone agrees that there should be accountability in our education 
system--accountability for school systems, schools, teachers. We want 
to know we are getting results. That was the core idea behind all the 
standardized testing in No Child Left Behind. The problem was that No 
Child Left Behind set up a system in which we assessed student learning 
by measuring proficiency and only proficiency. As the law was 
implemented, all sorts of problems emerged from taking this approach.
  For example, teachers in Minnesota would tell me how measuring 
proficiency would lead to what they called ``a race to the middle.'' 
See, measuring proficiency only measures whether or not students are 
performing at grade level--at this line of proficiency, at grade 
level--and a teacher is measured by what percentage of her students or 
his students are above proficiency or at proficiency. A teacher does 
not get credit for helping kids who were already well above grade level 
to perform better, and they don't get credit for helping kids who are 
way below grade level start to catch up. So we had this race to the 
middle because it is a yes-or-no question: Did this student achieve 
proficiency or not? A teacher's entire career could depend on how many 
of his or her students met that arbitrary goal.
  So under this system, understand this, please. A teacher had a strong 
incentive to ignore all of the students at the top who were already 
going to meet proficiency. No matter what you did to that kid, that kid 
was going to beat proficiency in the No Child Left Behind test at the 
end of the year. They had a strong incentive to ignore all the kids at 
the bottom because, no matter what you did, that student wouldn't reach 
proficiency. The only thing--or one of the only things--I liked about 
No Child Left Behind was the name. And we were leaving behind the kids 
at the top and the kids at the bottom because of the insistence on 
proficiency.
  I can't overstate how central this issue is to education, and I can't 
tell my colleagues how important it is to educators across America. If 
you talk to any State education secretary, any district superintendent, 
any local school board member, any principal, any classroom teacher--
and, heck, parents--they will have an opinion on measuring growth 
versus measuring proficiency.

[[Page 1915]]

  So when Mrs. DeVos came before the HELP Committee, I asked for her 
opinion on this very basic--this extremely basic--extremely important 
question, and she had no idea what I was talking about. Let me be 
clear. She wasn't reluctant to declare her opinion. She wasn't trying 
to strike a middle ground. She did not know what I was talking about.
  We would not accept a Secretary of Defense who couldn't name the 
branches of the military. We would not accept a Secretary of State who 
couldn't identify Europe on a map. We would not accept a Treasury 
Secretary who doesn't understand multiplication. In fact, in nearly any 
circumstance, if a candidate for a job is asked a question that basic 
and that important and simply whiffs on it the way that Mrs. DeVos did, 
there is no second question. There is just a thank you for your time, 
and we will let you know, and will you please send in the next 
candidate.
  Earlier this year, the University of Minnesota hired a new head 
football coach. I wasn't there for the interview. But imagine if the 
first question for a candidate for football coach of your university 
was as follows: How many yards does it take to get a first down? And 
imagine if the candidate answers as follows: Thank you for your 
question, Mr. Athletic Director; I can pledge to you that I will work 
very hard to get as many first downs as possible to make sure, we hope, 
that we lead the team to touchdowns.
  This wasn't the question. The question was this: How many yards does 
it take to get a first down?
  Well, thank you again for the question. I can tell you this: I will 
look forward to working with you to prevent the other team from getting 
first downs also.
  Understand, that is how basic my question to Mrs. DeVos was, and that 
is how shocking it was that she simply didn't know enough about 
education policy to answer it.
  This inexplicable failure alone was enough for me to conclude that 
Mrs. DeVos lacked the knowledge and understanding that should be a bare 
minimum for anyone seeking the position. But the entire hearing--the 
entire hearing--was a showcase for her lack of qualifications. I would 
urge any of my colleagues who haven't had a chance to watch it. I urge 
you to do so before casting a vote for this nominee. It was one of the 
most embarrassing scenes I have witnessed during my time in the Senate. 
In fact, I believe it may have been one of the most embarrassing 
performances by a nominee in the history of the Senate.
  Asked about the right of children with disabilities to get a quality 
public education, she didn't know that this right is protected by a 
Federal law--the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Asked 
about guns in schools, she suggested that maybe guns should be kept on 
hand in case grizzly bears attacked. This was in answer to a question 
from Senator Murphy, who in Congress represents Sandy Hook and who, as 
a Senator, represents those parents. That was her answer to him.
  Asked about whether she would hold private parochial schools that get 
taxpayer funding to the same standard of accountability as public 
schools, she couldn't or wouldn't say.
  Asked about a family foundation that has donated millions of dollars 
to an organization promoting conversion therapy for LGBT youth, she 
claimed she had no involvement, which is ridiculous. Even if Mrs. 
DeVos's own role as vice president of that foundation was a 13-year 
clerical error, as she now claims, she herself has donated 
approximately $75,000 to support that anti-LGBT organization's work.
  Now, understand that none of these were difficult questions. None of 
these were gotchas. All of these failures took place during a single 5-
minute-per-Senator round of questioning, because after that first 
round, the hearing was cut off and our chairman refused to allow any 
further questions.
  By the way, I would like to say a word about that move to cut off 
questioning. I have great respect for the chairman of the HELP 
Committee, Lamar Alexander. We have worked together, and he worked with 
Senator Murray on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, changing 
it to ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act. I respect the chairman 
tremendously. But his decision to end that hearing was wrong, and his 
rationale was simply false. Our chairman insisted that because 
Secretary Duncan and Secretary King had been subject to only a single 
round of questions, there was a precedent to deny the minority a second 
round of questioning of Mrs. DeVos. That simply isn't so.
  First of all, as I discussed earlier, both Ernie Duncan and John King 
were experienced education professionals with long records of public 
service. Even if Republican Members had occasion to disagree with them 
on policy matters, there was no question that their backgrounds had 
prepared them for the job of Secretary of Education, and that is the 
bigger point here. There were no further questions. In both cases, 
committee members weren't denied the opportunity for a second round of 
questioning. They simply chose not to engage in one. Indeed, when I 
asked the Congressional Research Service, they confirmed that those 
hearings did not establish the precedent that our chairman claimed.
  Instead of allowing us to question Mrs. DeVos further, the chairman 
invited us to submit additional questions in writing, presumably so 
that she could get some help from her Trump administration handlers in 
answering them. Even so, her written responses only served to further 
expose her own lack of understanding of how education policy affects 
Americans.
  For example, I asked Mrs. DeVos in writing about the effects of 
trauma and adverse childhood experiences on education. This is a 
subject I have been interested in for a long time. A lot of kids in our 
country live in extreme poverty. Some may have a parent in prison or a 
parent who has passed away. These kids may also experience physical 
abuse or emotional abuse or neglect. There may be some drug or alcohol 
abuse taking place in the house. Some have witnessed domestic violence 
in their home or street violence in their neighborhood. Some have seen 
siblings shot and killed right in front of them. Decades of research 
have shown that the trauma that comes from such adverse childhood 
experiences actually changes a child's brain chemistry and affects 
their behavioral development, their mental and physical health, and 
their chances to succeed in school and in society longterm. But 
research has also shown that these challenges can be overcome and that 
the kids who do overcome them are the most resilient kids you have ever 
met.
  Our public education system was designed to give these kids a shot. 
Teachers and administrators often lack the resources they need to give 
these children the chance they deserve. Because Mrs. DeVos's crusade 
for school vouchers would further rob our public schools of these 
limited funds, I wanted to know her thoughts on this important issue.
  This is take-home. Her written answer was brief and superficial. She 
wrote that she had heard that children are impacted by trauma and that 
trauma can cause difficulties in a child's education. That was it. Was 
she unfamiliar with the literature? Was she unwilling to acknowledge 
that poor kids face special challenges? Would she be remotely 
interested in addressing these challenges as Secretary of Education? I 
guess we may never know.
  I also asked Mrs. DeVos in writing about her vision for education in 
rural communities. As the Presiding Officer knows--the Governor and now 
Senator from South Dakota--many of our children in America attend 
school in rural America, 10 million American kids, schools that 
struggle with teacher shortages and transportation challenges. I asked 
how would her school choice agenda help them. In her response, she 
pointed to online schools, which are often run by for-profit companies, 
many with questionable records. In fact, one of the country's biggest 
online schools recently agreed to a $168.5 million settlement in 
California for allegedly defrauding families--a $168.5 million 
settlement.
  But even online schools that aren't out to rip off students often 
wind up

[[Page 1916]]

failing them. A 2015 Stanford study showed that, on average, kids in 
online schools lose the equivalent of 72 days of learning in reading 
and 180 days of learning in math, and that is for each 180-day school 
year, which means that kids in online schools can fall up to a year 
behind in math.
  Of course, as the Presiding Officer knows, many rural communities 
lack reliable broadband access. I have been on rural education tours 
where I find students who go to a McDonald's parking lot so they can 
get WiFi to read their public school assignment or get materials to 
study. This is another answer that wasn't an answer at all, yet another 
piece of evidence that Mrs. DeVos is simply not up to this job.
  Like many Americans, I have serious concerns about many aspects of 
the Trump administration's agenda. Still, I believe that as a United 
States Senator, it is my job to evaluate each nominee on his or her own 
merits. That is why I voted for nominees like Secretary Mattis and 
Secretary Chao, even though I disagree with them on important issues. 
General Mattis, for example, has nearly a half century of military 
service under his belt, he has earned the respect of leaders on both 
sides of the aisle, and I believe he will be a much needed voice of 
reason on the Trump administration's foreign policy. Ms. Chao has a 
lengthy background in public service, including as Secretary of Labor 
and Deputy Secretary of Transportation. I believe she will bring 
significant and valuable experience to her important role. I may well 
take issue with the decisions they make and the agenda they implement 
as members of President Trump's Cabinet, but at the very least, each 
illustrated during their confirmation hearings that they have a basic 
understanding of the issues they will be responsible for. Mrs. DeVos is 
different.
  I have heard from Minnesotans about many of President Trump's 
nominees, but the outcry over this nomination far surpasses anything 
else. As of a week ago, my office had received 3,000 calls about this 
nominee. A grand total of 12 were in favor of her confirmation. 
Additionally, we received more than 18,000 letters and emails, and 
again the overwhelming majority of them have urged me to oppose this 
nomination.
  For example, a woman from Brainerd, MN, wrote to say that she never 
contacted one of her representatives before and didn't consider herself 
very political--in fact, she was neither a Democrat nor a Republican, 
but she has a daughter in second grade and a son beginning kindergarten 
in the fall, and she wanted me to vote against Betsy DeVos. ``How,'' 
she asked, ``is someone who has never had any experience in public 
education supposed to competently preside over it?''
  A mother of two public school students in Faribault, MN, wrote of 
Mrs. DeVos: ``As I watched her during the hearing, I was in disbelief 
that she would be appointed to such an important position.''
  Another constituent from Warren, MN, wrote: ``This woman is so 
unqualified, it's scary.''
  Last week, I went to dinner with Vice President Walter Mondale at his 
favorite restaurant. Afterward, he took me into the kitchen to greet 
some of the men and women who worked at the restaurant. One of the guys 
in the kitchen--I am a little unclear of whether he was taking dishes 
to the dishwasher or he was washing dishes. He is not a teacher, he is 
not an education advocate, just a guy who works in the kitchen. He 
said: ``Please vote against DeVos.''
  There is a reason why this nomination has been met with such 
overwhelming resistance on the part of the American people, and I know 
I am not the only one who has heard it. In fact, two of my Republican 
colleagues and fellow HELP Committee members who sat through that 
hearing, Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski, have stepped forward to 
announce they cannot vote for this nominee. They don't agree with me on 
every aspect of education policy, but, believe me, when we put ESSA--
Every Student Succeeds Act--together, the committee voted unanimously. 
There is a lot of agreement on education policy on our committee, but 
Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski saw the same hearing I did. Like 
me, they saw a nominee who simply does not understand the needs of the 
students our Secretary of Education is supposed to serve.
  I will let my colleagues speak for themselves as to the reasons why 
they will be joining me in voting against this nominee, but I would 
like to close by asking a few questions of my colleagues who are still 
considering a vote in her favor.
  If Mrs. DeVos's performance didn't convince you that she lacks the 
qualifications for this job, what would have had to have happened in 
that hearing in order to convince you? If you cannot bring yourself to 
vote against this nominee, is there anyone President Trump could 
nominate for any position that you could vote against? If we cannot set 
party loyalty aside long enough to perform the essential duty of 
vetting the President's nominees, what are we even doing here?
  The Constitution gives us the power to reject Cabinet nominations 
specifically so we can prevent fundamentally ill-equipped nominees like 
Betsy DeVos from assuming positions of power for which they are not 
qualified. Let's do our job. For the sake of our children, let's do our 
job.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to add a few Rhode Island 
voices to the voice of the Senator from Minnesota. By the way, I am not 
cherry-picking my correspondence to find the rare letters in opposition 
to this nominee. We have had an unprecedented avalanche of opposition 
to this nominee. It is running well more than 100 to 1 against her, and 
it is people from all walks of life.
  Here is a letter from William, a 12th grader in Pawtucket, RI. 
William took the trouble to write to me. Let me start with the topic 
line: ``Concern over Betsy DeVos.''

       Hello, Senator Whitehouse!
       My name is William and I am a senior at Blackstone Academy 
     Charter School, a public charter school in Pawtucket, Rhode 
     Island. I am contacting you today due to my concern about 
     educational equality, specifically Betsy DeVos' ability to 
     commit to practices that ensure that the children who need 
     the most help aren't forgotten about and brushed under the 
     rug. These children are our kids of color, as well as our 
     low-income kids attending urban public schools with limited 
     resources.
       Having attended a Pawtucket public school, I can 
     confidently say that there are some genuinely brilliant minds 
     here in this very city, in the areas where somebody like Mrs. 
     DeVos would least expect. Yet it also cannot be denied that 
     the students here begin their journey on ground that is 
     unequal to that of other kids who are not people of color, or 
     are not part of the public school system, etc. These bright 
     young saplings are being crushed before they are given the 
     chance to blossom, and that is a systemic problem that DeVos, 
     given her various shortcomings, will only serve to perpetuate 
     and make worse.
       DeVos, given her support of the privatization of public 
     schools and her open disdain towards the LGBTQIA community, 
     has established that she will not improve the experiences of 
     marginalized communities. Her interest is not the betterment 
     of education for people, but the monetization of education to 
     put money in her pockets and the pockets of people like her. 
     DeVos will never spearhead movements that promote equity in 
     education and will continuously disappoint us all throughout 
     her term which will not be defined by deviating from the 
     status quo and creating a system that our troubled but gifted 
     youth can thrive in. In fact, she will do the opposite.
       With this in mind I ask that you, Senator Whitehouse, 
     openly speak out against Betsy DeVos, and do everything in 
     your power to keep her out of the Secretary of Education 
     office. I also ask that you continue to remember me and 
     children like me; public school youth who could be incredible 
     if they are just given the opportunity to thrive.
       Thank you for your time!
       William.

  Now let's hear from Da-naijah, a 10th grader from Central Falls, RI.

       Dear Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,
       My name is Da-naijah, and I am in 10th grade at Blackstone 
     Academy School which is a public charter school. I live in 
     Central Falls, RI. I'm writing today because I'm concerned 
     about kids being able to afford college, regardless of 
     background. I care about this because I have plenty of family 
     members and friends who go to public school, and they either 
     want or are trying to go to college. I know they will need 
     help with paying for college because they don't come from a

[[Page 1917]]

     very wealthy background. Fair and equal education is so 
     important to me because I think everyone should be treated 
     fairly regardless of how they look because we are humans. I 
     am concerned about Betsy DeVos being nominated for Secretary 
     of Education because she doesn't have any experience with 
     classrooms. Also because she basically doesn't like public 
     schools since she is trying to make public school private and 
     is trying to take resources away from public schools. With 
     that being said, I hope that you do everything you can to 
     help the kids in public school get equal education and fair 
     education as much as private schools do. Please read my email 
     when you can and I would like to thank you for your time.
       Sincerely,
       Da-Naijah

  Next is Sara. She also lives in the city of Central Falls.

       I am writing today because I'm concerned about the 
     education in the public schools in my city. The students in 
     Central Falls are not given the education they deserve in the 
     environment of Central Falls as of schools in other 
     districts. This is important to me because my younger brother 
     is a disabled boy, and it worries me that he won't continue 
     to get the education he deserves. I'm very concerned about 
     the nominee Betsy DeVos because she has 0 experience in the 
     role of Secretary of Education and there are videos on almost 
     any social media as well as YouTube to prove it and it 
     clearly shows she has no experience and will put our 
     education, or I'll say ``future'' at risk. Please Senator I 
     hope you can do everything you can to prevent her nomination. 
     . . . Thank you!
       Sincerely,
       Sara

  The last one I will read is from Jennyfer, 10th grade at Blackstone 
Academy Charter School, from Pawtucket.

       I'm writing today because I'm concerned about students in 
     public schools not receiving the same and fair education 
     students in charter and private schools have. I care about 
     students in public schools because I want every student to 
     have the privilege of receiving fair and equal education as I 
     have the chance too.
       Fair and equal education is so important to me because I'm 
     a Latina and a woman of color, I deserve the same equal and 
     fair education as every other individual. I want my siblings 
     who go to a public school to receive the same education and 
     resources I get.
       I am concerned about Betsy DeVos [that she] will take that 
     privilege away from students in public schools.
       I hope you do everything you can to prevent Betsy DeVos 
     from taking this privilege away from students in public 
     schools.
       Thank you for your time!

  There are more letters that I could read, but one point I would like 
to make is that these are students writing from charter schools. In the 
flood of opposition from Rhode Island that we have seen to this 
nominee, it has included teachers, managers, and students in charter 
schools. There has been a notion developed that this is a battle 
between public schools and charter schools and that public schools 
aren't good, but they want to trap children in them; that charter 
schools are the way out; and that Mrs. DeVos will lead us off into that 
charter school happy land.
  The fact is, it is not that simple. We have great charter schools in 
Rhode Island, and we have some great public schools in Rhode Island. We 
have both. The charter school leaders are opposed to her nomination. 
Why is that? It is in part because the transition from charter to 
public schools can be done fairly or it can be done unfairly. In all of 
her work, Mrs. DeVos has shown that she would do it unfairly.
  There is an obvious--what demographers would call--selection bias 
between the kids who turn up in a charter school that they have to 
select to go into and the kids who are still in the public school that 
is left behind.
  The selection bias is based on all sorts of different reasons. It 
could be as simple as they have more engaged parents. The parents are 
interested enough in their education to take the trouble to sign them 
up for the charter school, and that creates a slightly different 
demographic than the ones who are left behind. It helps the charter 
school population, and it makes it easier for the charter school.
  Charter schools have authority that public schools don't have with 
respect to discipline; indeed, the ability to remove children and 
return them to the public schools. They are able to force students to 
sign contracts and agreements regarding their behavior. Public schools 
can't do that. Again, that confers an advantage on the charter school 
that a public school doesn't have.
  Children with disabilities often get immense support through the 
public school system. When they try to go to the charter school, they 
see that the supports for the children with disabilities aren't there, 
and so it doesn't make sense to move to a charter school. The charter 
schools tend to get a smaller population of children with disabilities. 
They don't have that additional expense of dealing with and meeting a 
child wherever their abilities and disabilities are. The public school 
keeps that expense.
  In Rhode Island, we have people flooding into Providence. We teach 
kids who speak something like 70 original languages in our Providence 
public schools. A new immigrant is going to go to the public school. 
That is where they go. It is going to take them time to get settled and 
to learn about America and to pick up enough language to understand 
that a charter school exists, to make the choice to move their child 
there, and by the time they do, fine, if they make the choice. But, 
again, the public school had to be there for them; again, it is an 
advantage to the charter school.
  It is all great for charter schools, but the idea that they are 
outperforming public schools and there is no recognition of that 
selection bias is just unfair to the public schools. It gets worse when 
you move from the selection bias on students to the funding because the 
way it often works and the way it works in Rhode Island is that the 
money follows the student. If you are in the public school and you are 
selected for a charter school, then a certain stipend of money goes 
with you to support that charter school.
  The problem is that as that money gets taken out of the public 
schools' budget, the costs in the public school didn't follow you to 
the charter school. The money followed you to the charter school, but 
many of the costs remained. If one child leaves a public school 
classroom and goes to a charter school, you still have to turn the 
lights on, you still have to hire the teacher, you still have to heat 
the building, you have maybe one less pencil and one less piece of 
paper in the room, but those are tiny costs. The fixed costs remain.
  That is a very serious threat to public schools. Anybody who truly 
supports the charter school movement, as our charter schools do, has to 
understand, first, the selection bias problem and understand that the 
testing and accountability has to be fair between public and charter 
schools and, second, this funding problem--that if you are simply 
pulling the money out of the public schools into charter schools and 
the costs are staying behind, what you are doing is crashing the 
revenues but leaving the expenses of public schools.
  The public school students are going to suffer from that. If you 
don't adjust for it, you are being unfair to the public schools, and 
you are being unfair to the students. This is a serious enough problem 
that our Providence City Council is debating the issue right now and, 
as students move to charter schools, trying to figure out: How do you 
provide adequate funding so you are not stripping the public schools of 
what they need to continue to teach the other students? Not only are 
they serious about trying to figure out this budget equation at the 
city council level, but Moody's, the service that looks at municipal 
budgets and determines how sound they are and rates municipalities, has 
looked at this problem of charter school movement and the remaining 
costs in public schools and identified it as a fiscal threat to 
municipalities.
  These are both real problems, and the refusal of Mrs. DeVos to 
grapple with them suggests to our charter school leaders and to me that 
this is not just an effort to enhance students in being able to go to a 
good charter school; this is actually an attack on public schools.
  There are all sorts of reasons somebody might want to knock down 
public schools. One is that they simply don't like teachers unions. 
Teachers unions tend to vote Democratic, let's face it. If you want to 
cripple teachers unions, destroy the schools they work in. That is a 
really nasty reason to get into this charter school fight, but it is 
real, and it is out there.

[[Page 1918]]

  A second is, if you want to bring for-profit investment into this 
space, a lot of money gets spent on education. People who could figure 
out how to make money in this space want to get their noses in and to 
get a chunk of that money. When they come in, they may or may not do a 
good job, but they are highly profit motivated. If you are interested 
in trying to facilitate them and to give them a money making 
opportunity, then you may well want to damage public schools in order 
to support their move to for-profits.
  This creates a fairly significant problem when you connect it to the 
next piece of Mrs. DeVos's application. That is conflict of interest. 
One of the basic elements that we are here to look at in our advice and 
consent process is conflict of interest. Will the nominee be able to do 
a fair job? Will she be looking at things fair and square or will she 
have conflicts of interest that impede the fair exercise of her 
judgment?
  One place that we need to look for conflict of interest is when we 
have nominees who have run political dark money operations. This is a 
new thing for us. Not too long ago we swore in a new President--
President Barack Obama. When we did, we had ethics rules, government 
ethics offices, filing requirements, and all of that in place. That was 
2008. Then came the Citizens United decision--one of the worst 
decisions that five Justices on the Supreme Court have ever made, and 
it opened up the floodgates of dark money.
  This nominee is a practitioner of the dark arts of dark money. We 
know nothing about what she has done, but the conflicts of interest 
ought to be pretty obvious. If you raised millions of dollars from 
people in your dark money operation, then there is an indebtedness 
there that somebody might think could be an appearance of impropriety 
or conflict.
  We should know so that evaluation can be made. Or if you spent dark 
money in support of certain things, we should know so that we can 
connect the dots and evaluate the linkages and see whether it is a 
conflict of interest.
  We wrote to Mrs. DeVos about this. The first letter was January 5, 
2017. We got an answer, and the answer was spectacularly incomplete and 
unhelpful. So we wrote a second letter on January 27. I wish to take a 
minute and read this letter because I think it explains our 
predicament.

       Elisabeth DeVos
       Trump-Pence Transition Team
       Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
       Washington, DC
       Dear Mrs. DeVos,
       Thank you for your response of January 17, 2017, to our 
     January 5, 2017 letter--

  Mr. President, let me ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record the letter at the end of my remarks.

       Thank you for your response of January 17, 2017, to our 
     January 5, 2017 letter requesting additional information on 
     your vast political fundraising and spending network. Along 
     with various responses and objections to our request, you 
     produced a series of already public campaign finance reports 
     related to the American Federation for Children Action Fund, 
     a 527 organization, and its various State affiliates. For the 
     reasons that follow, we view your response as, while sizable, 
     nonresponsive.
       We requested you provide information about two 501(c)(4) 
     organizations with which you have been associated: the 
     American Federation for Children and the Great Lakes 
     Education Fund. You acknowledged your association with these 
     entities in your disclosures to the Office of Government 
     Ethics (OGE). You also acknowledged in your letter to us that 
     ``[e]ach organization with which [you] have been involved is 
     independent.'' It is not clear what you mean by 
     ``independent'' since you have already acknowledged your 
     association with these organizations. I hope you can 
     appreciate how both fundraising and spending of these 
     organizations (from whom? to whom? in what amounts? your 
     personal role?) might produce conflicts of interests in 
     potential decisions if you are confirmed to serve as 
     Secretary of the Department of Education.
       Our concerns are not hypothetical as known contributors to 
     your political organizations have had business before 
     Department of Education. For example:
       Vahan Gureghian: In 2010, Gureghian donated $100,000 to the 
     American Federation for Children Action Fund. Mr. Gureghian 
     founded and is the CEO of CSMI LLC, a Pennsylvania charter 
     school management company and helped found the Chester 
     Community Charter School. He has been a major donor in 
     promoting charter schools in Pennsylvania.

  I will interrupt reading the letter for a moment to point out how 
obvious it is that somebody involved in the charter school movement 
could very easily have business before the Department of Education. Who 
knows how much he gave? We know of about $100,000, but it could be a 
lot more. He knows. She knows, but the public won't know. When bids or 
competitions are up, that is simply not fair.
  On to the next one and back to the text of the letter:

       J.C. Huizenga: Between 2005 and 2007, Huizenga donated 
     $25,000 to All Children Matter, and in 2010 he donated 
     $30,000 to the American Federation for Children Action Fund. 
     Mr. Huizenga founded the National Heritage Academies, a for-
     profit charter network that has 80 schools in 9 States and 
     has received over $43 million in federal funding. According 
     to a 2012 review by the Michigan Department of Education of 
     the schools in the ``focus'' category, due to significant 
     gaps in achievement, more than half were managed by National 
     Heritage Academies. It has been reported that Mr. Huizenga 
     said that his involvement with charter schools was due to 
     realizing that ``privatizing public education was not only 
     practical but also desperately needed.''

  Again, to step back out from the letter, here is somebody who is in 
the for-profit charter school business, whose charter schools are more 
than half of the troubled charter schools reviewed by the Michigan 
Department of Education and who wants to privatize public education. He 
is linked with her through the dark money operation. We don't know 
anything about the dark money side.

       David L. Brennan: Brennan donated a total of $200,000 to 
     All Children Matter from 2004 to 2007, prior to AMC's wind 
     down due to campaign finance violations.

  This is a series of campaign violations, finance violations, that led 
to the $5 million fine that neither the entity nor Mrs. DeVos have ever 
paid.

       In 2010, he donated $39,000 to the American Federation for 
     Children Action Fund. He is the founder of White Hat 
     Management LLC, a for-profit charter school management 
     company that operates 15 schools in three states with over 
     12,000 students. Since 2008, Whitehat and its affiliates have 
     received $3.6 million in federal funds including IDEA funds.

  How are we ever going to know if people like this--who are making 
big, dark money contributions into the dark money operation that she 
runs--will not be rewarded in a pay-to-play fashion with grants and 
favors and an advantage in competition at the Department of Education? 
You would ordinarily evaluate that by knowing that the conflict of 
interest existed. But because it is dark money, we will never know.
  They will know. She will know, but the public will never know. The 
Senate will never know. The press will never know.

       While you may not have a direct financial interest in the 
     for-profit education enterprises headed by those listed 
     above, your political fundraising relationship with them, and 
     perhaps others, could cause a reasonable person concern over 
     your impartiality in matters involving them.

  Let me step out of the letter again. Doesn't that make sense? If you 
were applying for a grant before the Department of Education and your 
competitor was somebody who had given $1 million to Mrs. DeVos's Action 
Fund, wouldn't you want to know that? Don't you think the public should 
know that? If you were to find out later that had taken place, and they 
were awarded the grant and you were not, wouldn't that rankle you a 
bit? Wouldn't that suggest to you that perhaps we are not being treated 
fairly because of that big contribution that was made? But we will 
never know. We are disabled from doing our constitutional job of 
reviewing these nominees for conflict of interest when it is dark money 
that is at stake.

       The OGE process does not capture conflicts that arise 
     through political activity. . . .

  This is the first transition of Presidents since the Citizens United 
decision. This is the first one; so there is no history. We have to do 
it now, but we are not--not for this nominee, not for other nominees. 
We are leaving a black hole of secrecy around this enormous conflict of 
interest potential.

       The OGE process does not capture conflicts that arise 
     through political activity so it is

[[Page 1919]]

     incumbent upon us to assure the Senate record is complete as 
     to such conflicts and how they will be resolved.
       These are just the publically known examples of potential 
     conflicts. Our original request asked you for information to 
     assess potential conflicts with 501(c)(4) organizations that 
     are not required to publicly disclose donor information. 
     Accordingly, we reiterate our request that you provide:
       A list of all donors, their total donations, and 
     affiliations, who have contributed to the American Federation 
     for Children 501(c)(4), and the Great Lakes Fund 501(c)(4) 
     since their inception.
       A list of donations made by you, members of your family, 
     and foundations or organizations with which you are 
     affiliated, to other 501(c)(4) organizations over the past 
     five years.

  That seems like a perfectly reasonable request.

       According to the American Federation for Children's IRS 
     Form 990 filed for the year 2014, it spent nearly $1.1 
     million on political activities, including a $315,000 
     transfer to the American Federation for Children Action Fund, 
     Wisconsin IE Committee.

  I think most people here know how this works, but to make it clear 
for people listening, many political organizations require that the 
donors be disclosed. So if you want to engage in the dark money game 
and hide your political influence-seeking, what you do is you take your 
money and you give it to a 501(c)(4), a dark money operation. Then they 
in turn give it to the political action group. That is what happened 
here. $1.1 million into the American Federation for Children, $315,000 
transferred to the American Federation for Children Action Fund in 
Wisconsin. The only function that provides is to launder the identity 
of who the donor was. So that all you see is the money emerging from 
the dark money organization, with no transparency as to who put it in.

       Because donations to a 501(c)(4) are anonymous, they 
     effectively launder the identities of donors to the other 
     parts of the political apparatus. But you know, and the 
     donors know, and therein lies the potential for conflict of 
     interest. Additionally, you refused to disclose donations to 
     501(c)(4) organizations that you, your family and your 
     foundation have made. You explained, ``(t)he information 
     request requested has no bearing on the office to which I 
     have been nominated nor the duties of the Department of 
     Education.''

  That was her answer to the first letter. Our letter here continues:

       Your donations to 501(c)(4) organizations are indeed 
     relevant to your nomination, just as your donations to 
     political candidates, parties and causes are. One obvious 
     instance would be where groups to which you have made 
     political contributions are before the Department as 
     advocates or grant seekers. Again, you know and the donors 
     know, and therein lies the potential for conflict of 
     interest. Senators have a Constitutional duty to provide 
     advice and consent on Presidential nominees, and 
     understanding the scope and nature of potential conflicts of 
     interest is at the heart of that duty.

  I do hope that we can agree on that in this Body: That part of our 
advice and consent role is to understand the potential for conflicts of 
interest. If we can't agree on that, then we have a real problem here, 
because that is the purpose or at least one purpose of what we do.

       Your role in raising and distributing ``dark money'' 
     clearly raises the possibility of such conflicts. As a 
     result, we renew our request for information related to your 
     501(c)(4) organizations as outlined above.
       Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this 
     request. We look forward to your additional information and 
     disclosures and timely and responsive answers.

  Well, as of today, what we have is no answer at all--no answer at 
all. This is a recurring problem here. This business of dark money not 
being caught by the rather obsolete, in that respect, government ethics 
reporting conventions that have been carried forward from the Obama 
transition before all of this became a problem doesn't just apply to 
Mrs. DeVos.
  Secretary of State Tillerson, as CEO of ExxonMobil, ran a massive 
dark money operation. ExxonMobil has money all over front groups that 
deny climate change, all over political groups to try to discourage 
action on climate change, and a lot of it is dark money. There has been 
reporting that traces it back to Exxon, but we never know how much 
because it is dark money, and Mr. Tillerson hasn't told us one thing 
about it in his hearing.
  We will be considering shortly the nomination of Scott Pruitt as the 
EPA Administrator. Scott Pruitt ran a dark money operation as the 
attorney general of Oklahoma. Why would an attorney general want to run 
a dark money operation in the first place? That is a whole separate 
question--but he did. It was called the Rule of Law Defense Fund, and 
what it did was it took in money, prevented the donors from having 
their identities revealed, and then funneled the money publicly to the 
Republican Attorneys General Association. It was an identity laundering 
machine for the Republican Attorneys General Association for big donors 
who didn't want anybody to know who the source was of the money that 
was being funneled into the Republican Attorneys General Association. 
That is fine, I guess. I would like to be rid of all of it. We should 
pass the DISCLOSE Act and clean this mess up. But for sure, when 
somebody who has run a dark money operation comes before the Senate 
seeking to be nominated to a Cabinet office, we hold a constitutional 
duty to protect that office from improper conflicts of interest. 
Surely, then, their role in the dark money operation should be 
disclosed.
  It only makes sense. But, no, like Mrs. DeVos, absolute stonewall on 
any information related to the Rule of Law Defense Fund and Mr. 
Pruitt's dark money operation, a black hole of secrecy and enormous 
opportunity for conflict, because obviously, given his background and 
given where the rest of his fundraising went, you can draw a reasonable 
conclusion about where the dark money came from: Devon Energy, 
ExxonMobil, American Petroleum Institute, Murray Coal--the usual 
suspects. That is where a lot of his other money came from. You have to 
believe it went here. But do we know that? No. He could have taken $1 
million from one of those groups and then, as EPA Administrator, be 
ruling on an application of theirs and we would not know. Please don't 
anyone tell me that is not a potential conflict of interest. I mean, we 
can deal with alternate facts around here, but that is just crazy.
  We don't know about Mrs. DeVos's dark money. We don't know about 
Tillerson's dark money. We don't know about Pruitt's dark money. It is 
as if there has been an understanding--some secret handshake around 
here--that nobody will allow dark money information into the nomination 
process. That is just wrong. That is just wrong. It infects this 
nomination of Mrs. DeVos. We have to get answers to these questions.
  Let me move on to one other point: student college debt. I had a 
meeting recently. I think all of us had the same experience. From our 
home States, groups come to visit us and to get our time and to bring 
our attention to problems that concern them. I think we all get visits 
from the same groups. We get visits from our community bankers from our 
home States. We get visits from our credit unions in our home States. 
We get visits from the automobile dealers in our home States. We get 
visits from the insurance brokers in our home States. We get visits 
from the Realtors in our home States.
  When the Realtors of Rhode Island came in to visit me the last time, 
they raised a new issue that I had not heard before from them. The 
issue that they raised was this: You know, we are starting to have a 
real problem financing houses for the next generation of home buyers, 
the young home buyers who are coming into the market and who would 
ordinarily be buying their starter homes. The problem we are finding 
with them is that they are so loaded up with college debt that we can't 
finance the purchase of a home for them.
  That is how enormous the student loan debt problem is in this 
country. It is now preventing so many young people from buying a home 
that the Realtors have noticed and put it on their problem list as 
something for us to take action on.
  If the Realtors have noticed this, I don't think it is asking too 
much for a nominee for Secretary of Education to have noticed this. If, 
in fact, she has noticed this, I don't think it is asking too much for 
her to have thoughts and a plan, because we are well over $1 trillion 
in debt for these kids. I think it is

[[Page 1920]]

about $1.3 trillion now. It has been a known problem for some time. 
Over and over again, Democrats have tried to find and propose solutions 
here in the Senate. Over and over again, we have been shot down. But it 
remains a very considerable issue.
  You would think that a new Secretary of Education coming in would 
want to hit the ground running on this issue. She would have something 
she wanted to get done to solve it. There would be a plan or an 
outline. We may not agree with it, it may be something that we have to 
work together to find a way to get it to the floor, but at least there 
would be a starting point. All I got was, well, I would be interested 
in your views on that issue. How is it possible that with over $1 
trillion in student debt piled up, with the student debt problem so 
severe that even Realtors have put it on their to-do list to get 
something done about it, that a nominee for the Secretary of Education 
has nothing? Pockets out. Nothing to get started on this problem. Is 
she ever going to take an interest? I don't know.
  But it would seem to me, particularly when you look at where we are 
in the HELP Committee--our ranking member, Senator Murray, is here. 
Senator Murray and Chairman Alexander helped lead us together through 
the ESSA, the reform of No Child Left Behind, the Every Student 
Succeeds Act. It passed roaring through the Senate. The House even 
picked it up and took it. It came out of committee unanimously. States 
are still working on implementation of it because it freed them up to 
do a lot more things, and so they have to go through the process of 
deciding how they are going to take advantage of its new freedoms. So 
with respect to elementary and secondary education, we are actually in 
pretty good shape. All we have to do is implement the bipartisan 
popular law that we passed. So where is the attention going to be? 
Well, what we have not passed is the Higher Education Reform Act.
  So if you know at all that has been going on in education in the 
Congress, which is not asking too much of a Secretary of Education 
nominee, you know that we have just implemented a major reform of 
elementary and secondary education, that our next order of business is 
higher education, and that an elemental part of that is going to be 
college debt.
  So the fact that this nominee has nothing on that issue and is in the 
traditional deer-in-the-headlights-nominee mode of, well, I look 
forward to working with you on that Senator. Oh, yes, I understand that 
is a serious problem, Senator, but actually I don't have any ideas; I 
don't have any plans; I don't have any strategy; I have nothing. Let's 
just work together on it. That is not very convincing to me.
  I see the Senator from New Jersey here. The night is going on, so I 
will yield the floor to him, but I will close by saying that this 
recurring question about nominees who are involved in dark money 
operations and then refuse to disclose anything about their dark money 
operations so that it remains a black hole of secrecy and potential 
conflict of interest is wrong. It is just wrong.
  I know there are forces in this building that love the dark money, 
and there are huge special interests behind the dark money. There are a 
lot of people who benefit from the dark money who don't want any light 
on it ever. But once a nominee has had their name put in for a Cabinet 
position of the Government of the United States, by God, they ought to 
disclose their dark money connections because otherwise it is an avenue 
toward conflict of interest. Where there is conflict of interest, there 
comes scandal. It is our job to head that off by getting the 
information before the public so everybody can evaluate it, and we have 
been knee-capped in that effort by an absolutely positive shutdown from 
the other side of the aisle on any information about any dark money 
from any nominee.
  They don't have to be nominees. If they don't want to cough up their 
dark money information, they can turn the papers back in and tell 
President Trump: Find someone else. I would rather keep my secrets.
  But you should not keep your secrets and get the job.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 January 27, 2017.
     Elisabeth DeVos,
     Trump-Pence Transition Team,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mrs. DeVos, Thank you for your response of January 17, 
     2017, to our January 5, 2017 letter requesting additional 
     information on your vast political fundraising and spending 
     network. Along with various responses and objections to our 
     request, you produced a series of already public campaign 
     finance reports related to the American Federation for 
     Children Action Fund, a 527 organization, and its various 
     state affiliates. For the reasons that follow, we view your 
     response as, while sizeable, non-responsive.
       We requested you provide information about two 501(c)(4) 
     organizations with which you have been associated: the 
     American Federation for Children and the Great Lakes 
     Education Fund. You acknowledged your association with these 
     entities in your disclosures to the Office of Government 
     Ethics (OGE). You also acknowledged in your letter to us that 
     ``[e]ach organization with which [you] have been involved is 
     independent.'' It is not clear what you mean by 
     ``independent'' since you have already acknowledged your 
     association with these organizations. I hope you can 
     appreciate how both fundraising and spending of these 
     organizations (from whom? to whom? in what amounts? your 
     personal role?) might produce conflicts of interest in 
     potential decisions before you if you are confirmed to serve 
     as Secretary of the Department of Education.
       Our concerns are not hypothetical as known contributors to 
     your political organizations have had business before 
     Department of Education. For example:
       Vahan Gureghian: In 2010, Gureghian donated $100,000 to the 
     American Federation for Children Action Fund. Mr. Gureghian 
     founded and is the CEO of CSMI LLC, a Pennsylvania charter 
     school management company and helped found the Chester 
     Community Charter School. (he has been a major donor in 
     promoting charter schools in Pennsylvania.
       J.C. Huizenga: Between 2005 and 2007, Huizenga donated 
     $25,000 to All Children Matter, and in 2010 he donated 
     $30,000 to the American Federation for Children Action Fund. 
     Mr. Huizenga founded the National Heritage Academies, a for-
     profit charter network that has 80 schools in 9 states and 
     has received over $43 million in federal funding. According 
     to a 2012 review by the Michigan Department of Education, of 
     the schools in the ``focus'' category, due to significant 
     gaps in achievement, more than half were managed by National 
     Heritage Academies. It has been reported that Mr. Huizenga 
     said that his involvement with charter schools was due to 
     realizing that ``privatizing public education was not only 
     practical but also desperately needed.''
       David L. Brennan: Brennan donated a total of $200,000 to 
     All Children Matter, from 2004 to 2007, prior to AMC's wind 
     down due to campaign finance violations. In 2010, he donated 
     $39,000 to the American Federation for Children Action Fund. 
     He is the founder of White Hat Management LLC, a for-profit 
     charter school management company that operates 15 schools in 
     three states with over 12,000 students. Since 2008, White Hat 
     and its affiliates have received $3.6 million in federal 
     funds including IDEA funds.
       While you may not have a direct financial interest in the 
     for-profit education enterprises headed by those listed 
     above, your political fundraising relationship with them, and 
     perhaps others, could cause a reasonable person concern over 
     your impartiality in matters involving them. The OGE process 
     does not, capture conflicts that arise through political 
     activity so it is incumbent upon us to assure the Senate 
     record is complete as to such conflicts and how they will be 
     resolved.
       These are just the publicly known examples of potential 
     conflicts. Our original request asked you for information to 
     assess potential conflicts with 501(c)(4) organizations that 
     are not required to publicly disclose donor information. 
     Accordingly, we reiterate our request that you provide:
       A list of all donors, their total donations, and 
     affiliations, who have contributed to the American Federation 
     for Children 501(c)(4) and the Great Lakes Education Fund 
     501(c)(4) since their inception.
       A list of donations made by you, members of your family, 
     and foundations or organizations with which you are 
     affiliated, to other 501(c)(4) organizations over the past 
     five years.
       According to the American Federation for Children's IRS 
     Form 990 filed for the year 2014, it spent nearly $1.1 
     million on political activities, including a $315,000 
     transfer to the American Federation for Children Action 
     Fund--Wisconsin IE Committee. Because donations to a 
     501(c)(4) are anonymous, they effectively launder the 
     identities of donors to the other parts of your political 
     apparatus. But you know, and the donors know, and therein 
     lies the potential for conflict of interest.

[[Page 1921]]

       Additionally, you refused to disclose donations to 
     501(c)(4) organizations that you, your family, and your 
     foundation have made. You explained, ``[t]he information 
     requested has no bearing on the office to which I have been 
     nominated nor the duties of the Department of Education.'' 
     Your donations to 501(c)(4) organizations are indeed relevant 
     to your nomination, just as your donations to political 
     candidates, parties, and causes are. One obvious instance 
     would be where groups to which you have made political 
     contributions are before the Department as advocates or grant 
     seekers. Again, you know, and the donors know, and therein 
     lies the potential for conflict of interest. Senators have a 
     Constitutional duty to provide advice and consent on 
     presidential nominees, and understanding the scope and nature 
     of potential conflicts of interest is at the heart of that 
     duty. Your role in raising and distributing ``dark money'' 
     clearly raises the possibility of such conflicts. As a 
     result, we renew our request for information related to your 
     501(c)(4) organizations as outlined above.
       Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this 
     request. We look forward to your additional information and 
     disclosures and timely and responsive answers.
           Sincerely,
     Sheldon Whitehouse.
     Robert P. Casey, Jr.
     Tammy Baldwin.
     Bernard Sanders.
     Al Franken.
     Elizabeth Warren.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I know the night is going on. I just want 
to take a moment to express my appreciation to all the staff members 
and Senators who remain here on the floor. A lot of folks who work 
here, from the gentleman typing very quickly, all the way to a lot of 
the folks working, I just want to express my gratitude for the long 
night, particularly to the pages. It is their second week here, and 
they suddenly are being forced to grapple with not just school but the 
long nights of the Senate. I really do respect them and am grateful for 
their, how should I say, endurance tonight as well.
  I rise today, as many of my colleagues have, to speak to the 
nomination of Betsy DeVos and to speak specifically in opposition to 
her nomination to serve as Secretary of Education. I have listened to 
as many of my colleagues' words as I can. I want to say that 
particularly those on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension 
Committee have and will and continue to expand upon many of the 
concerning elements of Mrs. DeVos's record, concerns that I share about 
her lack of support for critical accountability measures, her lack of 
familiarity with many of the basic financial aid policies and programs 
which are so essential for people to have access to higher education, 
her inability to say that guns should not be in school, and her seeming 
lack of understanding of many of the fundamental yet critical education 
policy perspectives that I think are necessary for a job of this 
magnitude.
  I know there has been much said and there will be many more issues 
brought up of concern to many of the Democrats who spoke tonight, but 
tonight I would like to focus on an area that is very personal to me 
and also very personal to millions of Americans, that is essential to 
this role but one that may not be immediately understood when you talk 
about a Secretary of Education, but it is absolutely critical to that 
Department. In fact, I think it is one of the more critical roles of 
that Department when it comes to fulfilling the ideals of our Nation.
  Within the Department of Education is the Office for Civil Rights. 
That office is profoundly important, but it is one that many people 
don't have a full understanding of. What I would like to do right now 
is highlight four areas in which the Office for Civil Rights functions 
and also talk as it relates to my concerns about and my opposition to 
Betsy DeVos to serve as Secretary of Education.
  First, I would like to talk about what is at stake for children with 
disabilities and their families and their parents. About 13 to 14 
percent of our American school-age children--about 6.5 million kids and 
young adults in America--are students with a disability.
  Here in the United States, I am so proud that we have a deep belief 
and, in fact, our laws, passed by people of both Houses, both parties, 
dictate that all children be treated with dignity and respect and that 
they will get the educational opportunities all children deserve. 
Indeed, our laws reflect that, but the spirit of America is to see that 
in this Nation all of our children have unique gifts, all of our 
children have beauty, and we as a nation collectively believe they all 
deserve a strong pathway to the fundamental American ideal. They 
deserve pathways to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that 
when we say ``justice for all,'' we really do mean all children.
  But unfortunately, as the work of the Department of Education's 
Office for Civil Rights demonstrates, the Federal Government is often 
at odds with some school districts that do not properly enforce 
protections granted to students with disabilities under the Federal 
law, again passed by both Houses, passed by both parties. Within our 
country, thousands of parents do not believe their children are 
receiving justice in their local school systems for their children with 
disabilities. They reach out to the Federal Government for help, for 
relief, for that justice.
  Take the example of one child, the case of a 9-year-old child in 
California whose name is withheld for privacy. This child--and let's 
call her Jane--is a student like so many others. She has the same 
dreams and aspirations, has hopes, has promise, and has untapped, 
unlimited potential.
  At the age of 9, this child, ``Jane,'' had been physically restrained 
in her school more than 92 times during an 11-month period by her 
school because of her disability. As a part of that restraint, she had 
been held facedown for a total of 2,200 minutes.
  The Office for Civil Rights at the Federal level, the Federal 
Government, it took them to investigate this case, and they found that 
the district was in violation of the Federal law and required the 
school district to stop using these kinds of restraints on students and 
to actually take the time and energy to invest the resources in 
training the staff on alternative intervention methods, methods that 
recognize the dignity of that child and show that we have the potential 
and power to elevate that child, not to so savagely restrain them.
  This was not only unconscionable treatment that the Federal 
Government intervened in, but clearly it was illegal within the bounds 
of Federal law. This is not the way that anyone here, anyone in this 
body with a child with a disability, any of us would want our children 
to be treated.
  If I had a child, I know it is not the way I would want them treated. 
Frankly, when it comes to the children of America, they are our 
children. Whether Republican or Democrat, we know that our children, 
our kids, American children--all children, frankly--deserve better than 
this kind of physical abuse. It is for these kinds of reasons that I 
believe we need to have an aggressive Office for Civil Rights because 
the story of Jane, of a 9-year-old, is not an anomaly. It is not 
something that is rare.
  Unfortunately, as we are seeing, there are many violations of Federal 
law that go on when it comes to our children with disabilities. There 
is tremendous evidence that this kind of abuse still goes on in our 
country, and there needs to be an ultimate authority that can 
investigate this abuse and, if necessary, hold those people accountable 
who are the abusers. And the additional step that the Office for Civil 
Rights does is it gives advisement, gives instruction on how to make 
sure the abuse does not happen in the future.
  We need our Office for Civil Rights to work with school districts to 
establish those policies and procedures to prevent that abuse.
  When Mrs. DeVos, during her testimony, was given the opportunity to 
speak to the millions of parents who have real, legitimate concerns 
about their children with disabilities and the treatment they receive 
in school--she was given the opportunity to speak to the vital role of 
the Federal Government in protecting our children and affirming those 
rights, about the role of the Office for Civil Rights, and instead of 
taking that opportunity, instead of

[[Page 1922]]

seizing the moment to talk about what she would be doing to lead, she 
actually denied a role for the Federal Government. When asked about 
protecting students with disabilities, she simply said: ``It should be 
left up to the States.''
  Well, I will tell you right now, for that 9-year-old child physically 
restrained more than 92 times, held facedown for hours, the Federal 
Government clearly had an important role to play for that mom, for that 
family, for that child in making sure this kind of atrocity doesn't 
happen and will not happen for more children.
  Secondly, I would like to talk about what is at stake with the Office 
for Civil Rights as it relates to children who are different, whether 
that be the color of their skin, whether they wear a hijab to school as 
an expression of their faith or if they are a minority or, again, a 
child with a disability.
  For example, I have spoken much as a Senator about the school-to-
prison pipeline and often how certain categories of children experience 
different types of discipline for the same act in school just because 
of how they look.
  School disciplinary policies, we know, play a big role in a child's 
success, and those disciplinary policies are clearly treating different 
children in different ways. There will be different outcomes for those 
categories of kids.
  We know that children who have out-of-school suspensions often 
graduate at significantly lower rates, have significantly higher run-
ins with the law. I am one who believes we cannot allow discrimination 
to happen in that manner in our school.
  These are the facts. This is the data. Take, for example, the fact 
that Black students are 3.8 times more likely than their White peers to 
receive one or more out-of-school suspensions, while students with 
disabilities actually are twice as likely as those without to receive 
one or more out-of-school suspensions.
  Let me give you the specific case of Tunette Powell, who wrote about 
her son who is Black. His name is Joah. He was suspended five times in 
2014. He was 3 years old.
  She said: ``One after another, White mothers confessed the trouble 
their children had gotten into. Some of the behavior was similar to 
JJ's,'' her son's. ``Some was much worse. Most startling'' to her was 
that ``none of their children had been suspended.''
  She continues to write. ``After that party,'' where she had heard 
this from other White parents, ``I read a study reflecting everything I 
was living. Black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment 
but make up 48 percent of preschool children receiving more than one 
out-of-school suspension, according to the study released by the 
Education Department's Office for Civil Rights in March,'' she writes.
  One of the critical things about the Office for Civil Rights is that 
they have been proactively collecting data about differences in 
treatment in our schools.
  Now there are many people who actively assert that the role of the 
Office for Civil Rights has grown too large, that they are poking 
around in local matters too much, that even collecting such data, as 
was relied on by this mother, is an intrusion into States' rights. I 
believe, when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to religious 
freedom and the treatment of our children, I do not believe that the 
Office for Civil Rights has grown too large. I believe they are 
offering critical transparency into the workings of our schools; that 
they are collecting data that parents and policymakers and civil rights 
groups can use to see who is being left behind, who might be facing 
discrimination, who is not receiving justice.
  What do we have to be afraid of even on just the collection of data 
to allow ourselves to have that transparency, to create an environment 
of accountability?
  I worry that if this is not a priority for the next Secretary of 
Education, then closing the achievement gap, shutting down the school-
to-prison pipeline, and empowering all children to have an equal 
opportunity to learn will be undermined.
  These are real problems in our country, and they aren't just going to 
go away. The Federal Government, especially when they insist upon data 
transparency, is an active partner in helping us to receive the justice 
that we deserve and need and pledge allegiance to as a country.
  I had hoped during the hearings of Mrs. DeVos that I would hear more; 
that even if I had the opportunity to talk to the nominee myself, I 
would have asked for more information around these issues, but I didn't 
have that opportunity, and in the very rushed hearing, the issue wasn't 
raised.
  I believe, though, that based on the testimony that was given, that 
the nominee may not see this as a vital function of the Office for 
Civil Rights and, in fact, may shrink that office and the ongoing 
proactive investigations that we see right now into such matters.
  We know that the school-to-prison pipeline, particularly for young 
people of color, isn't just real; it is actually pervasive. But during 
Mrs. DeVos's confirmation hearing, when asked about the Office for 
Civil Rights within the Department of Education that is responsible for 
rectifying such unjust situations, she refused to comment. She refused 
to comment. She refused to commit herself even to directing the Office 
for Civil Rights to investigate such civil rights violations. I don't 
understand why it is difficult to even commit the Department to 
continuing such investigations, but that commitment was denied.
  I want to next talk about the serious problem we have in America with 
sexual assault and sexual violence in schools and on college campuses. 
Mr. President, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 16 men are sexually assaulted in 
their college years, but only 1 percent of assailants on college 
campuses are arrested, charged, or convicted.
  We still know that too many people on college campuses who have been 
sexually assaulted, who are survivors, are routinely denied justice and 
are forced to even live or even go to class with their attackers.
  The Office for Civil Rights has risen to this challenge and this 
crisis. They have opened investigations in over 200 schools in America. 
There is a crisis of campus sexual assault in America, and now the 
Office for Civil Rights is expanding their work. They have stepped up 
to that challenge. In addition to that, they have issued guidance to 
all college campuses on preventing and combating sexual assault.
  Mrs. DeVos, again, during her testimony--many of us were hoping she 
would rise to the occasion, that she would speak to this issue. She was 
given a chance, given a chance not just to speak to the issue but to 
talk to the Federal role in meeting this crisis, to acknowledge that 
this is an issue our Nation must grapple with and must end, but she did 
not speak to the concerns of parents. She did not speak to the concerns 
of survivors. She did not speak to America about the urgent need for 
all of us to be engaged in dealing with the crisis for which there has 
been silence for too long.
  More than this, she did not speak to the role of the Office for Civil 
Rights, to the expanding role they have been taking, to the expanding 
investigations on college campuses all across the country, giving no 
confidence to me or to others that this will be a role that will 
continue--in fact, a role that I believe should be expanded.
  Again, even when she was specifically asked about upholding guidance 
within the Department of Education on combating and preventing sexual 
assault--not asked to commit on the investigations, not asked to commit 
to expanding the efforts but just asked about upholding the guidance 
within the Department of Education on combating and preventing sexual 
assault, she refused to commit to maintaining that guidance.
  I would like to speak to another area. Before I do, I do believe in 
this idea of transparency that my previous colleague talked about when 
it comes to donations. Some of the charities that have received 
donations from Mrs. DeVos have a history of fighting against efforts to 
combat sexual assault, and some of these organizations worked to make 
it more difficult for sexual assault victims to seek justice.
  That brings me to an area in which I have a deep level of concern. I 
hope

[[Page 1923]]

Mrs. DeVos will take the opportunity to set the record straight because 
much has been written even before the hearings involving an area where 
there is a clear crisis in our country. It is the crisis involving the 
safety and security of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender 
youth in America.
  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth face a stunning level 
of discrimination inside and outside of schools starting at a very 
young age. We know that LGBT youth are two times more likely than their 
heterosexual peers to be physically assaulted in schools. LGBT youth 
are four times more likely to attempt suicide. According to youth risk 
behavior surveys, 34 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender 
students were assaulted on school property. More than one-third of LGBT 
school students were bullied on school property, and 13 percent of 
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students did not go to school 
because of concerns for their safety. We know in America that this kind 
of harassment has no place in our classrooms, no place in our schools, 
and it has no place anywhere in our country, but it is all too common 
and all too often unaddressed.
  I would like to talk about a parent. Her name is Wendy Walsh. The 
harassment against Wendy's son Seth began for him in the fourth grade 
when his classmates suspected he was gay. By the time he reached the 
seventh grade, the bullying, the verbal and physical abuse in person 
and online was so bad that he was afraid to walk home from school. This 
child lived in terror of just going to class. After one bullying 
incident in a local park, his mom says that 13-year-old Seth came home 
from school. She talked to him. He asked to borrow a pen from his mom. 
That conversation will be the last time she would see her son alive. 
The next time Wendy saw her son Seth, he had hanged himself on a tree 
in their backyard.
  After Seth's death, Wendy, experiencing a level of grief and agony I 
cannot imagine, decided to file a complaint with the Department of 
Education Office for Civil Rights. When the Office for Civil Rights 
came in and investigated, they found that Seth's school district was in 
violation of several Federal laws, that they failed to intervene and 
stop the bullying and harassment and torment that this child endured 
from a precious age until his death, that their actions could have 
potentially prevented the death of one of our children, an American 
child, a child of beauty and of worth and of dignity and protection.
  Wendy went to the Federal Government to the Office for Civil Rights, 
and they took her concerns seriously. They aggressively investigated. 
Because of their investigation and because of Wendy's courage in her 
time of grief, the school district, in violation of Federal law, was 
required to take steps--though not there to prevent her child's death--
they were required to take steps to prevent the kind of harassment, 
tormenting, and bullying from happening to other students. I am not 
sure if any of that is solace to a mother who lost her child. I am not 
sure if it gave her comfort, but I am hopeful that with an active 
Office for Civil Rights at the Federal Department of Education, at a 
time where more than 10 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are 
missing school because of that kind of fear, when one-third are 
reporting bullying and harassing in person or online, at this level of 
unconscionable treatment for any child, there is a role for the Federal 
Government to protect our children. I believe if we take these matters 
seriously that we can insure that this kind of bullying and harassment 
will come to an end in America. It is unacceptable in a country this 
great. There are laws against this, and there are folks who have an 
obligation to enforce those laws; that is, the Office of Civil Rights.
  I believe things will get better, but they will not get better 
automatically because we hope for them, because we pray for them; they 
will get better because we are a country that loves our children, and 
love is not a being verb. It demands action. We see time and time again 
that children aren't seeing the kind of action where they are, and 
thank God right now there is a place for parents to go. They can appeal 
to the Federal Government. The Department of Education, the Office for 
Civil Rights, has to be led by someone who takes this seriously, who 
sees the calls for justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender 
youth as valid, that sees the crisis, that sees the problem.
  It was widely reported, when Mrs. DeVos's nomination was made--widely 
reported--that her family had given support, significant support, and 
that she herself gave significant support to discriminatory extremists, 
dangerous and hateful groups that promote ideas that say a child who is 
gay is somehow lesser than a child that is not; groups that have 
supported things like conversion therapy, something that has been 
resoundingly condemned--dangerous ideas that are hurtful to children. 
With all of that, with all the articles that have been written, this 
was a chance for Mrs. DeVos to sit before the American public knowing 
that these concerns are out there, and it is understandable, even if 
she doesn't hold them, it is understandable that this was a moment for 
her to allay the fears of the thousands and thousands of children who 
are being isolated and hurt by bullies, the people who are assaulting 
their dignity--these children have suicide rates that are 
unconscionably high--for the parents mourning their kids, with all that 
swirl, the hearing was her chance to set the record straight to say: I 
will uphold the value and dignity of these children, but more than 
that, I recognize there is a crisis in our country, and I will work 
with the Office for Civil Rights to do something to address this evil 
in our country. We have so many kids being hurt and harmed. This was 
her chance to go beyond just denying that she believed in conversion 
therapy, to go beyond just words in asserting that she values equality. 
This was her chance. It should have been understood that because of the 
record and the charitable donations that there was a degree of 
suspicion; that there was an understandable degree of legitimate fear 
that she would not continue the courageous work of the Office for Civil 
Rights in combating discrimination, harassment, and physical abuse of 
children across our country. She had the opportunity.
  Given the fears and concerns that have been expressed, I would have 
hoped she would have spoken directly to the work of the Office for 
Civil Rights to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teens 
who are factually experiencing some of the highest levels of hate 
crimes and violence and bullying of any children in America; that she 
would have made some affirmation that she would be a champion for their 
equality, for their dignity, and the Office for Civil Rights would 
continue its needed work, but she didn't.
  I hoped she would stand up and say: We have violence on our college 
campuses; that right now silence is allowing insidious realities to 
exist. We have a problem with reporting rates. We have a problem with 
reports being made and not being taken seriously; that she could have 
used that as an opportunity to speak against what is happening to an 
unconscionable level of young women on college campuses--something that 
we would never want to have happen to any of our daughters; to make a 
pledge that the Office for Civil Rights would not just continue campus 
advisories but would fight to hold those college campuses accountable, 
but she didn't.
  For students and families across the country, this may not be a 
celebrated part. We may not all know in America that the Department of 
Education has an Office of Civil Rights, but for so many families with 
children on college campuses and preschools, grade schools, high 
schools, the Office for Civil Rights has been the difference--the 
difference makers between injustice and justice, the difference makers 
between violence and security, the difference makers between who we say 
we are as a nation, liberty and justice for all, and experiencing a 
terrible, awful lie.
  I feel compelled to speak out on the vital importance of the 
Education Secretary, regardless of party, regardless

[[Page 1924]]

of background. I feel a personal responsibility to assure that if I 
cast my vote as a Senator, that whoever takes that office will be 
tireless in the defense of all the rights, privileges, and liberties of 
our students because I personally stand here today because of the role 
of the Federal Government in enforcing civil rights laws. I stand here 
today because of the courageous Federal laws that were put in place--
bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats, great battles on this floor 
for civil rights and disability rights, for title IX protections for 
women. I am a product of these kinds of fights over the Federal role 
when it comes to civil rights. I stand here today because of our 
collective history. I stand here today because of our dramatic history. 
I believe in States' rights. It is enshrined in our Constitution, but I 
cannot ignore the role of the Federal Government. Brown v. Board of 
Education is perhaps one of the most famous Supreme Court cases 
affirming the Federal role.
  I hung a picture in the front of my office. I come out of my office 
into where my assistant sits, and the first thing I see on the wall in 
front of me is a Norman Rockwell painting. There is this young girl in 
that painting, and she is striding proudly to school, and behind her 
are racial epithets, a tomato smashed against that wall. She is a 
little girl--God, her courage--named Ruby Bridges. There are these 
White men surrounding her walking just as tall, and they are escorting 
that girl to school. There is clearly hate swirling around. You can 
look at that picture, and you can feel it. But I don't care what your 
background or religion is, you look at Norman Rockwell's painting--as I 
make sure I do every day as I leave my office as a U.S. Senator and I 
see that picture--and I am reminded that sometimes when there is hate, 
sometimes when there is violence, sometimes the State doesn't get the 
job done. Sometimes, the most vulnerable child needs a little help--not 
just from a loving teacher or a loving parent but from a government 
that stands behind her and says: You matter.
  I can't stand here today without recognizing that this is my history, 
that this is your history, that it is all of our history, and that our 
Federal Government has a role to play. I drink deeply from the wells of 
the freedom and the struggles and the sacrifice. I reap the harvest 
from Ruby Bridges and her courage.
  Our country has come so far. There is so much love, so much more 
recognition of the dignity of all children. But, come on, we are not 
there yet. Children are often harassed because they wear a head scarf. 
I recently heard about a Sikh child wearing a turban who was still 
harassed; a mother concerned that her kid, no worse than another but 
seems to get suspended more for the same behavior. As to children with 
disabilities, parents are still concerned that even though we have 
affirmed their rights and dignities in law, those laws aren't being 
carried out like they should.
  God, there are young women on a college campus today who rightfully 
question whether their campus is committed to eradicating sexual 
violence.
  With all of these things going on, we have to have champions here. We 
have to have people who understand that public education is a right for 
everyone. Some of the most profound battles in our country have been 
fought to get equal access for children to school, so that they can 
stride toward that school door knowing that they will get a quality 
education, free from bullying, free from harassment, free from the 
binds of hatred or discrimination that might hold them back in their 
lives.
  Now, I have faith in who we are as a Nation. I know we are a loving 
country and a good country, but we haven't got it perfect yet. So I 
stand here today in opposition to this nomination because I believe we 
need a champion. I wish I had a chance to meet with the nominee. I wish 
the hearings had been longer. I have never seen them so rushed. But 
there is too much at stake right now. There are too many problems that 
still exist.
  Sadly, there still is a need for an Office of Civil Rights in the 
Department of Education that is aggressive when it comes to the defense 
of freedom and our rights. I did not hear such a commitment from this 
nominee. There are millions of parents who didn't hear her speak to the 
concerns they have about their gay child, the concerns they have about 
their child with a disability, their concerns about their children 
going off to college. We did not hear that commitment. In fact, what we 
heard was a belief that States can figure it out. There was a failure 
to commit to even the most basic continuance of the Office of Civil 
Rights.
  I am glad I hung that picture in front of my office. I may not be 
able to get what I consider an open hearing and answers to these 
questions because I walk by Ruby Bridges. I feel I owe her a duty to 
not vote for someone who has been silent on the issues that are so 
critical to this country being who we say we are.
  There is a child, I think, who wonders right now. Somewhere in 
America, that child is wondering if this country will prove itself true 
to them. They are probably enduring some things I never had to endure. 
They are probably worried about their safety. They are probably being 
put in a situation where they are questioning their worth. They 
probably feel alone and isolated. My prayer is that this child knows 
that, even though it isn't perfect and it won't be easy, that child 
somehow knows that they are not alone, that there will be people 
fighting for them. I was taught, in the words of a great poet, that 
there is a dream in this land with its back against the wall; to save 
the dream for one, we must save it for all.
  May the Office of Civil Rights in the years to come remain vigilant, 
remain strong, and remain expansive in their efforts. I have no 
confidence it will do so under this person and, therefore, I oppose 
this nomination. Thank you very much.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from New 
Jersey, who has given us such a compelling reason to remind all of us 
why we are here at almost midnight and why we all intend to keep 
talking and keep working and keep trying to convince one more Senator 
to say no to this nominee. He reminds us of the basic principle in this 
country that our forefathers dreamed of and that they put into our 
Constitution and that we have fought for, which is that every child 
should have dignity and every child should have a public education. 
That is why it is so important that we have someone who leads this 
agency who shares that conviction. I really want to thank Senator 
Booker for his tremendous words tonight.
  As the ranking member on this committee, who has been here throughout 
the Friday debate and through the 12 hours of debate we have had 
tonight and we will continue to have up until the vote tomorrow, I have 
had the opportunity to hear many Senators speak passionately. Senator 
Tester was here on Friday. He is from a very rural State, and he was 
speaking about how important it is to not have funds robbed away from 
the public education systems in those small little school districts to 
go to students with vouchers for private schools that don't exist in 
those rural communities. He talked about the importance of our public 
schools and our public school institutions in a slightly different way 
than the Senator from New Jersey did. He talked about how, when his 
grandparents settled in Montana, instead of being ranchers like those 
before them, they were wheat farmers. There were cattlemen and wheat 
farmers who were fighting and at odds with each other in the community, 
and where they came together was in their schools, because both 
cattlemen's kids and ranchers' kids were in the same school, and they 
played basketball together, and it healed the wounds of that community.
  The Senator from New Jersey just talked about the Office of Civil 
Rights and why it is so important--that no matter what we look like or 
what this country stands for, this country says you have a right to an 
education. It is in our public schools where kids from all strata and 
all economic lives, with

[[Page 1925]]

different backgrounds and different colors and different religions and 
different thoughts come together and heal our communities.
  That is what is at risk with this nominee, and that is why so many 
Senators on our side have said: To one more Republican Senator, send 
this nomination back to the President who campaigned saying: Let's heal 
this Nation; let's bring people together; send us a nominee who 
actually does that.
  Again, I want to thank the Senator from New Jersey and all of the 
Senators who have been here to speak about how important it is to have 
a public education.
  I wouldn't be in the Senate tonight without a public education. I 
come from a family of nine, and my father, who was a World War II 
veteran, got sick when I was in junior high. He was diagnosed with 
multiple sclerosis. My mom had been at home taking care of seven kids. 
She didn't have a job. She didn't have skills. We didn't know what was 
going to happen to us. But we had a public education system that was 
there for us. Our country was there for us with a public education 
system--not with a voucher that said you can go to a private school 
that we couldn't afford even with it or to be able to get one, but a 
public education school in our community that gave the education to 
each one of those kids in my family--all seven of us. Then it allowed 
us to go on to college with Pell grants and student loans, because our 
government was there for us, even though my dad was sick and my mom had 
to stay home and take care of him. We had food stamps for a while, and 
it was tough, but we made it because this country had a commitment to 
public education for every student, no matter where you lived or where 
you came from or what challenges you had at home.
  That is why I am here in the Senate, and that is why many of us are 
here in the Senate. It is why this nominee has sparked such an interest 
across this country. Like many Senators--I think, like all Senators--my 
office has been inundated with mail and phone calls and emails and 
rallies and people saying: Please, stop this nominee, and send us 
someone who can actually work for all of us, because education is a 
critical piece for each one of us. It is across the country.
  I want to share some of the letters that I have received about this 
nominee. I have received 48,000 pieces of mail opposed to Mrs. DeVos; 
the number of pro-DeVos emails and letters is in the teens. I have 
48,000 pieces, and they are all personal. These aren't rote emails and 
letters; these are personal pleas. Why and how? Because these people 
saw this nominee at this hearing, and their expectations for our 
education system in this country are high. They want someone leading 
the Department of Education who knows the issues, who believes in 
public education. They were appalled at what they heard, and they said 
no.
  Mrs. Mary Ann Whittaker, a woman from Longview, WA, a small rural 
community:

       Dear Senator Murray,
       As an educator of 30 years and a mother who has helped to 
     raise and educate five children, I was shocked and dismayed 
     by the lack of knowledge and depth of understanding that Ms. 
     DeVos has about education. Our education system needs a 
     leader who can be a true leader in this arena, with the 
     background and backbone to do what is in the best interest of 
     the children of this great country--please do everything in 
     your power to make sure this woman is not allowed to gain 
     this position. Thank you--on behalf of thousands of children 
     and educators in the state of Washington!!

  I heard from Joel Puchtler of Seattle, WA. He said:

       Please do everything in your power to stop DeVos from 
     becoming Secretary of Education. She is transparently 
     incompetent, and will be destructive to the nation's 
     education system through both intent and ineptitude. Demand a 
     competent appointee from the president-elect.
       I am an educator. My wife is an educator. My grandfather 
     was the first Commissioner of Education (so called at the 
     time) under the Johnson administration. He would be thrilled 
     to see a competent woman in this appointment, but 
     categorically horrified at the possibility of DeVos, just as 
     I am.

  These are the kinds of reactions I am hearing from my constituents. 
Why? Because we had this nominee come before our committee. We were 
allowed 5 minutes each to ask her questions. She has a very complex 
financial background. We were not allowed to look at those financial 
background papers before we had a chance to talk to her, so we only had 
some information. The only thing we could do was ask her questions 
about what she believed in. Her answers were astounding, and many 
people saw them, whether it was about IDEA and the ability of children 
with disabilities in this country to get an education, whether it was 
about policy debates we are having on education, or what she saw as her 
drive and her ambition. People in this country want someone who feels 
passionate about public education, not someone who has used her vast 
amounts of wealth and her experience to go after what she calls an 
education system that is incompetent and, in her opinion, needs to go 
away. Her drive has been to take the funds out of public education and 
go for private, for-profit education.
  I can understand that a woman who is a billionaire with a lot of 
money invested in companies wanting companies to succeed, but our 
public education system is not a company. Our public education system 
is something that is derived from the communities that it is in, from 
the teachers who are there, from the parents who participate as school 
board members and teacher volunteers. It is the driving passion of our 
communities. It is not something people want ripped away, torn apart, 
or degraded. That is why this nominee has touched a nerve across the 
country.
  I heard from Mrs. Rebecca Blankenship. She lives in Gig Harbor. She 
said:

       Dear Senator Murray,
       I am writing to urge you to oppose the nomination of Betsy 
     DeVos as the Secretary of Education. As a certified teacher 
     who has taught for many years in Public schools and as a 
     parent of two young girls in the Peninsula School District, I 
     find DeVos to be completely unqualified for the position as 
     she has no public school experience, has actively funneled 
     money away from schools in need and lacks the fundamental 
     educational background to make decisions that impact millions 
     of students.
       There is no issue more important to me than our education 
     system.

  I heard from Ms. Carol Pelander, a former teacher, from Tacoma, WA:

       As a retired public school teacher, who continues to work 
     part-time training new teachers, I am extremely concerned 
     about the potential damage that will be done to public 
     education if Betsy DeVos is confirmed as the Secretary of 
     Education. Our mission as educators includes teaching our 
     kids how to live and work together effectively in a diverse 
     community, and the proposals brought to the table by Ms. 
     DeVos to privatize education will further divide us as a 
     community and significantly reduce our already limited 
     resources. She is not qualified for this important leadership 
     position.

  I have been in the Senate for a long time. I have gotten a lot of 
emails, a lot of phone calls, talked to a lot of constituents, and been 
to a lot of community meetings. These thousands of letters that we are 
getting are not form letters. These are letters of people telling 
stories. They are passionate about their public schools. They have 
spoken louder about this nominee than any other, saying: This is not 
what I want for my country.
  I have heard from many people in our rural communities who are so 
concerned about privatizing our public education system because they 
don't have a private school to send their kids to, even if the voucher 
that she espouses were enough to put them into one.
  I grew up in a rural community. I grew up in the small town of 
Bothell. Coming in to town, I remember the sign that said 998 people, 
and I remember the day it said that 1,000 people lived in Bothell. Our 
schools were the heart and soul of our community. It is where your met 
your neighbors. It is where you sent your kids to play basketball. 
Everybody showed up for the football games and the music concerts. It 
was our community. We loved it, and we owned it. Did we say it was 
perfect? Did my parents say it was perfect? No. But it was the heart 
and soul of that community, and they did not want to lose it, just as 
so many other parents

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in this country want a Secretary of Education who wants all kids to 
have a good education.
  I have so many letters here. I have one from Adam Brickett, from 
McClure Middle School in Seattle. He says:

       Thank you for your years of service representing our state. 
     I have never contacted an elected official before--

  By the way, many of my letters start with that.

       I have never contacted an elected official before but with 
     the changes happening in our country I feel the need to now. 
     I'm writing specifically to you today about the nominee for 
     Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.
       As a middle school teacher for Seattle Public Schools I 
     work hard every day to ensure that my students get the best 
     education possible to be successful in their future careers 
     and lives. I am concerned that Ms. DeVos does not have the 
     experience necessary nor the best intentions for our nation's 
     students and schools to be our Secretary of Education. I 
     believe she would put profits and money ahead of students, 
     schools and teachers. I felt this way before her nomination 
     hearing and feel even more strongly after her hearing. I am 
     worried about the damage she could do to an already fragile 
     public education system. I know I am not alone as virtually 
     all the colleagues I have spoken with have expressed similar 
     dismay with her nomination.
       Her record of attacking public schools and funneling money 
     to charter and parochial schools with little to no oversight 
     is troubling. Her lack of experience whatsoever with public 
     education is also very disturbing. Not only has she never 
     been an educator or administrator but she has never even 
     attended or enrolled her children in public education.
       A high quality, public education is one of the most 
     powerful tools a society has. Please don't allow someone with 
     no experience and who is fundamentally against public 
     education to become the person in charge of it. I 
     respectfully ask you and your colleagues in the senate to do 
     what is right by our nation's students and reject Ms. DeVos 
     as Secretary of Education.
       Thank you again for your tireless service to the residents 
     of Washington.

  I have 48,000 letters. My staff handed me a pile of them. They are 
all very similar. They are very heartfelt. They are not just writing a 
rote letter to us. They watched the hearings, they listened, they care 
about our public schools, and some of them are Trump supporters. They 
want this President to support our public schools.
  They did not in this past election have a debate about whether we 
should privatize public schools. We talked about the debate--and I know 
my candidate didn't win. But in this country, I never heard a debate 
about taking public education away, about voucherizing our public 
schools, about having someone who is the top person--the Secretary of 
Education--espouse positions that are so fundamentally opposed to what 
I grew up with and obviously to so many parents, teachers, students, 
family members, superintendents, people involved in schools, and 
business leaders. They are writing to us now because they saw the same 
thing we did in this hearing.
  Let me read a letter from Trina Whitaker from Mukilteo Schools. She 
says:

       This is my 16th year of being a teacher in our public 
     school system in WA State. I am an advocate of public schools 
     as I feel strongly that all our students deserve the right to 
     free and quality education.
       I am opposed to the nomination of Betsy DeVos for the 
     Secretary of Education system. Her past actions and beliefs 
     clearly demonstrate that she is not an advocate for our 
     public schools. It would be so damaging if we move in the 
     direction of privatizing public education.
       Please consider opposing the nomination of Betsy DeVos in 
     the best interest for our public school system.

  Let me read another letter from Rachel Guim of Seattle. She says:

       As a committed public school teacher, I believe in our 
     neighborhood public schools, which open their doors to all 
     children, because unlike Betsy DeVos, I see them work for 
     children and their families every single day. We as a 
     community are being undermined by charters, vouchers, for-
     profit schools and online schools. Precious tax dollars are 
     being wasted creating a parallel school system (when we're 
     already underfunded and not meeting the legal requirements)! 
     Our democratically governed schools--we, the people you have 
     vowed to represent--need your commitment and support. Choice 
     is a disguise for school privatization, nothing more. Stop 
     the takeover of our democratically governed schools. . . . Do 
     not vote to confirm Betsy DeVos.

  And she goes on. Again, there are so many letters from so many people 
from so many different walks of life, all concerned about having a 
Secretary of Education who doesn't represent the best values and the 
best beliefs of our country.
  Ms. Amanda Smith, a Kindergarten teacher, wrote to me and said:

       Hello,
       I am a kindergarten teacher in a public elementary school. 
     I am very concerned about Betsy DeVos' potential nomination 
     as secretary of education. As someone who never attended 
     public school, didn't send her kids to public school, does 
     not have an education degree and has never taught, she hardly 
     seems like a fitting candidate for secretary of education. 
     Can anything be done to stop this nomination?

  From Gina McMather, a teacher in Port Townsend, WA:

       Dear Patty Murray,
       As a recently retired public school teacher, I especially 
     urge you to fight against Betsy DeVos's nomination for 
     education secretary. She is not in any way qualified for the 
     job. Her commitment to charter schools combined with a lack 
     of experience with public schools could destroy our nation's 
     educational system.
       Public school teachers provide an education for all of our 
     students. Teachers need more respect and remuneration. We 
     need the very best college graduates to be attracted to the 
     profession. I have known so many dedicated and effective 
     public school teachers during my 25-year career and those of 
     us retiring baby boomers need the best successors possible. 
     They need your support. Don't let this undermine our efforts.
       Thank you again for all your [work].

  What I hear from people over and over again is that they want 
somebody leading our public school system in this country who actually 
believes in public schools, who has the education, the experience, the 
compassion, the willingness to understand what our forefathers did when 
they created this country and said: We are going to have a country--a 
democracy--that has a public education system paid for by all taxpayers 
to assure that everyone, no matter who they are or where they come 
from, is not denied a public education. They can learn to read and 
write and communicate and get the skills they need to be successful. 
They can dream who they want to dream to be and be there.
  We do not want to go backward, and we are one vote away from changing 
where we are on this nomination, sending this back to the President, 
and asking him to please send us a Secretary of Education who can get 
the votes in the Senate, who will be an Education Secretary for all 
people, from all walks of life, from our rural communities and our 
urban communities, no matter who they are or where they come from. 
That, I think, is a great possibility and would be a great outcome.
  I know that my colleague is on the floor and is ready to speak as 
well. Again, I have so many letters from so many people--48,000--who 
have voiced their opinion on this, more than I have ever had with any 
other nominee in my memory or any other issue in my memory. I thank all 
those who have written in and spoken out and stood up for public 
education. It is the foundation of our democracy, and it is our 
responsibility, our goal to continue that for them.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________