DeVos opposition snowballs into avalanche
DeVos opposition snowballs into avalanche:- Adversaries of Betsy DeVos are mounting a furious last-minute bid to sink her nomination for Education secretary, with tactics that include a “tie-breaker telethon” in Alaska, a flood of emails to U.S. senators and celebrity appeals to millions of Twitter followers.
Teachers unions, civil rights advocates and a ragtag assemblage of other opponents are bombarding congressional offices with tens of thousands of phone calls and more than 1 million emails — a massive but almost certainly doomed effort to vanquish one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks.
Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, said on Twitter that the last three days had “been the busiest in Capitol switchboard history” by “almost double.” He urged opponents of DeVos to “keep it up.”
The campaign kicked into high gear this week after two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, announced their opposition, leaving the charter schools advocate hanging by a 50-50 thread. Just one more “no” vote and DeVos is done — a prospect that seems tantalizingly close for Democrats but that GOP leaders say they’re confident won’t happen.
Author Stephen King, a Maine resident, tweeted to his 2.8 million followers: “Thanks to Susan Collins for saying ‘No’ on Betsy DeVos. Notice that it’s possible to be a good Republican and still say no to Donald Trump.”
A final vote is expected Tuesday, and as it stands, Vice President Mike Pence is expected to be summoned to the Capitol to push DeVos over the top. DeVos cleared a key procedural hurdle Friday morning.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday he was “100 percent confident” DeVos would be confirmed. “I hope that that vote, you know, gets 60, 70 votes,” Spicer said. “She is an unbelievable, remarkable woman who has fought very hard to improve our nation’s education system and to make sure that schools are serving children.”
But critics are going into overdrive, determined to try to turn one more Republican before Tuesday’s vote.
George Takei, the activist and former “Star Trek” star, urged his 2.1 million followers to double down on their efforts. “With two GOP Senators defecting, Betsy DeVos could be denied,” he tweeted. “We need one more with courage.”
Nebraska Republican Deb Fischer, whose mother was a public school teacher, is among those who have been caught in the crossfire. Fischer became a target after DeVos’ opponents assumed she was undecided. But Fischer, a DeVos supporter, said she was merely sticking to her longtime practice of keeping silent until she voted.
She now plans to change that policy.
“There was such a to-do over this that, yes, I had to put out my statement before I voted,” Fischer said in an interview, saying that phone lines to her office were entirely tied up.
Nevada Republican, Sen. Dean Heller, who also came out in support of DeVos, said on Twitter that his staff was struggling to keep up with all the calls.
“We are experiencing heavy call volumes in all our offices,” he tweeted later. “Staff is answering as many as possible. Please continue calling to get through.”
Sen. Bob Corker, who supports DeVos and had lunch with her last week, said the number of calls his office is getting on all of Trump’s nominees, including DeVos, is “very, very large.”
“People are very sincerely concerned,” the Tennessee Republican said.
Teachers unions, who have long warred with DeVos over her support of charter school expansion and using taxpayer money for vouchers, among other things, are continuing to mobilize hundreds of thousands of their members across the country to call lawmakers.
The country’s largest union, the National Education Association, says it has organized more than 80,000 phone calls and more than 1.1 million emails in the past four weeks.
But the opposition to DeVos mushroomed into something bigger after clips from her bumpy confirmation hearing exploded across social media, reinforcing questions about her qualifications for the job and turning the nominee into a punchline on late night television.
“Betsy DeVos teaches us that if you’re born rich, never go to public schools, and hate public schools, someday you can run public schools,” tweeted comedian Mike Birbiglia.
Union organizers say that although they are still campaigning against DeVos, a good deal of the backlash comes from the general public. And they anticipate those efforts would increase over the weekend as activists share lawmakers’ phone numbers on Facebook and Twitter.
“This has become such a high-profile fight for our education system that there will no doubt be an enormous amount of activism over the weekend,” said Mary Kusler, senior director of the Center for Advocacy at the NEA.
Parent groups have become soldiers in the cause, incensed that DeVos has never been a teacher or school administrator and fearful she will put their children’s education at risk.
Deena Mitchell, a parent activist in Anchorage, said she is disturbed by Devos’ “absolute lack of experience for this job.”
“I think anyone who makes a comment that public education is a ‘dead end’ doesn’t fundamentally believe that public education is the bedrock of our democracy,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell and her group, Great Alaska Schools, cheered Murkowski’s decision to oppose DeVos. This weekend, they’re organizing “a tie-breaker telethon,” collecting comments to deliver to their other senator, Dan Sullivan, who has said he’ll vote to confirm her.
The push against DeVos has also sparked some unlikely alliances.
Billionaire philanthropist and education reformer Eli Broad, a Democrat who has donated to both parties and pushed for charter school expansion, penned a letter this week urging the Senate to reject DeVos.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who is usually on the opposite side from Broad, shares his position on DeVos. Education secretary nominees are usually given great deference by both parties, she said. But “DeVos breaks the mold.”
Source:- http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/betsy-devos-opposition-confirmation-234640
