Transcripts For CSPAN2 Senate Reair DeVos Nomination 20170204

Judgment. The number one job of the United States ex to cajunwh secretary is to create an environment in which our 100,000 Public Schools succeed because thats where nine out of ten of our children go. When i was education secretary in the early 1990s i have the privilege of working with a man name david kern. Who has been a chief executive officer of the corporation. He came in as a deputy b education secretary and the time he was the only one of the leading build dash like businessman and he was also the leading businessman who tried to help change Public Education. And david kearns believed itso very difficult to help children by changing Public Education be try to do from within. He respected as all of us do the teachers and the parents in the students who work within the Public Education system but over the last 30 years as his country has worked to try to improve our Public Schools much of that energy has come from outside the Public School establishment. Among those were the governors of the country in the mid 1980s all of the governors met together in 1985 and 1986 on one subject for a whole year the purpose was how can we help improve our Public Schools. As i was chairman of the governors that year. Bill clinton was a vice. Chairman. We did that from outside the ma since that time many governors e and Business Leaders had worked hard in support of our Public Schools trying to help them become even better opportunities for our children. Among those has been betsy devos. I think of governor jed bush. O and john engler of r commissioner. And in the work they did in their respective states to maketi their Public Schools better. Integrate other opportunities for children. All of those governors the three i mentioned bush, Romney Engler they support betsy. Lette the 22 governors who had written letters to me as chairman of the Senate Education Committee Supporting betsy devos. They see her as someone fromho outside the system of Public Education who as they worked for 30 years can help change that. I asked consent to include in the record the names of the 22pp governors who support her. Kansas they come from alabama, arizona. Kentucky, maine michigan mississippi. Ohio oklahoma tennessee. O all of those. The governors of all the states support betsy divorce. Pot four of the last education secretary support her. This b Joe Lieberman who served inorke this body and worked on the Voucher Program for many years endorsed her. She has strong support from the governors who for 30 years had been working hard to successfully improve our Public Schools. Some have said she has spent her time working on to be children choices of schools other than Public Schools. Shes done that. And its always puzzled me as to why anybody would criticize that. The idea that a low income child should have the same opportunity or more of the same opportunities that aou wealthy family has would seem to be a very allamerican idea. Oes and not only does it seem to be its an idea that underlies the most successful piece of social policy our country has ever enacted arguably. The g. I. Bill from veterans in 1994. The veterans came for home from world war ii. We give them a scholarship. It followed them to the college of their choice. Arg she has argued for the same thing for children. G whitey had to create the greatest generation and the greatest commenters of the world. W so a dangerous for schools. Overo but i would argue that she hasas been among the forefront of the leaders like the governors for the most successful reform over the last three years to change and improve Public Education and that would be the public Charter Schools. Begn those begin with 12 schools in minnesota created by the democratic former labor party in the early 19 hundreds. Since then they had been supported by every president president obama president clinton. De president bush. The most recent education th secretary was the founder of Charter Schools. This congress four times by the bipartisan majority has supported Charter Schools. The last six United States education secretaries have supported Charter Schools. They had grown from 12 to 1600 per day. E they are Public Schools in betsys in the forefront of helping to create that opportunity for Public Education. And finally madame president t 85 she believes what 85 of us voted for the lot that president obama called the christmas miracle december 2015 is to reversetr the trend from the National School board and restore control of our children in our schools to those closest tocommn the children. There will be no mandates for common core. For teacher evaluation. Unite from the United Statesartmen department of education headed by betsy devos. Will be swapping a National School board for what she believes and which is a local school board which is what 85 of us four. Im pleased to support her. Ll i include within following my record asked consent an article from by max eaton that was published a couple days ago. The detroit Charter Schools by three major studies are better e and perform better. In the traditional schools of detroit. I look forward to cassie my vote for betsy devos. Adam pre early next week. Think you madame president. [inaudible] the president dash make the senator from washington. Im here today to stand with parents, and students and teachers and families in communities across our country to make sure they have a voice to strongly oppose betsy devos and her plans to privatize Public Schools and destroy Public Education in america and to urge my colleagues to stand with their constituentsubi and join democrats and republicans in rejecting the dissemination. Ols. I come to the floor today is the former preschool teacher someone who got my start in politics fighting for a strong Public School. A former school board member. A senator committed to standing strong for Public Education in america. A mother and a grandmother who cares deeply about the future of our students in our schools. Across and someone like 70 people across the country is everything i have to a strongedo education. Thats what i received growing up in this country. Its my responsibility to do everything i cant to make can to make sure the opportunities that were there for me and some of the others are open to every student in this country ty no matter where they live or how they learned or how much money their parents had. And i believe the federal government in general and the department of education specifically has Important Role to play in making that happen. I take the position. With this moment. It is a critical job. I consider it to be my job to do everything i can to make sure that the person who feels it is truly committed and if i will discuss in detail today and in the coming days i do not believe that betsy devos is the right person to do that. Before i get into the failed Field Records and her lack of experience i want to make a point about how i approach nominees and how that impacts o my perspective on this one. Ebate any of them on the other side of the aisle are going to spend their time in this debate. He they will try to say President Trump has won this election he should be able to pick anyoned he wants to fill this position i we should also down and be quiet. Will madame president i reject that. I believe the senate has an Important Role to play in thispr process it is our constitutional duty to take these nominations seriously. I refuse to stand by and just watch. They absolutely have the right to nominate people he thinksea they will carry out the vision for the country. That does not mean that the senate should be ahe rubberstamped to the contrary. We owe it to the people we represent to make sure everybody nominate is not only qualified for the position and free of conflicts of interest but that he or she will put families into workers first and not millionaires and billionaires or big corporations. It was the first president ial candidate in decades. It did not release his tax returns. He is openly flouting the conventions regarding his personal and family businesses. I believe in an administration who well line around potential conflicts of interest and theyre likely to be blurred at the top. They need to be even clear at the individual agencies. I will not apologize. Our for demanding the senate do his job. I will not back down from asking my questions for my constituents the ones that they would want me to ask. And i will not stop fighting as hard as i can to oppose a secretary of education who doesnt stand with them. Im extremely disappointed howe this process has gone so far. I have Great Respect for the , espec chairman of our committee that i have never seen anything like it especially coming out of our health educationee labor. Until now we had worked together across party lines so well. Right from the start was very clear republicans intended to jab this nominee through the process as quickly as possible. Ut corners were cut. Precedents were ignored. They were brought. I have never seen anything like it. On this committee. Republic the Democratic Administration or republicans it has been truly frustrated and deeply disappointing. S i believe it is our job to scrutinize nominees. Their they were acting like it was their job to protect her fromtin in first republicans rushed up and do hearing before we have her ethics paperwork in. E that might seem like a small thing may seem like a procedural issue but madame president it was important. Ee every single nominee during the Obama Administration has their ethics paperwork in before and hearing. Bef and the republican majority majority leader made having ethics paperwork in the hearing a court demand of hisn during the Obama Administration. The reason for this isul simple. Senators should be able to ask them questions about their finances. Their potential conflicts of interest. How they plan to avoid them. And how they plan to uphold the letter in the spirit of our ethics laws. Without the authors of Financial Disclosure senators go into a hearing in the dark on a nominees ethics and finances and that is exactlywhew what we were pushed into with mrs. Divorce. Secondly. When we get into that hearinges we were told that democrats would only had five minutes each to ask questions. To ask about betsy devos and her finances. The long record on privatization of Public Education her vision for this department and the many issues in this departments no five minutes and then cut off. This was completely unprecedented and absolutely wrong. Never before have it been the case in our committee not a single time that i recall that a senator who have a question for a nominee and was cut off and blocked from asking it. Democrats were sitting at the hearing waiting, hoping the s chairman would change his mind but we were shut down and we were silence. And miss divorce was protected from answering additional questions. Third, after we finally got her ethics paperwork and have a number of questions about ithn i requested another hearing i requested another hearing where we could ask those questions. That was a reasonable request. It was rejected. Uestio i have a number of questions inf for betsy devos about missing information in her paperwork for the committee and she isro simply not provided to the committee with the required movg Financial Disclosures. We have a strong tradition in our committee of not moving to vote until the ranking members and the questions were answered. Ushed and finally madame president. After was pushed through the committee with questions abouto they were ignored to get this job done. Well. Republicans are attempting to jab it through here as well. Its pretty clear to me why. The more people learn about it o the more they realize how wrong she is a for our students in our schools the more they hear about her background they more they see her as one more way that President Trump is rogue and swamp and of the more that comes out about her failed f records her tangled finances and conflicts of interest and her lack of understanding or experience the more the pressure increases on republicans to put their allegiance to President Trump aside and to stand with their constituents. G i understand like some republicans. And he gets absolutely wrong. And i know people are paying attention i want to make one final point on this. The chairman of our committee be the senior senator from tennessee has brought up the idea of fairness when it comes to how we should approach this nomination. He believes President Trumpsfao heinee should be treatedr is a finding fairness and an interesting way. Dn he same if republicans didnt scrutinize President Trumps a nominees if they didnt take the time to do their dueo diligence then it would be unfair for democrats to do that for President Trump. I dont agree with that. I do find ferland this very differently. I believe the fair thing to do is what is fair for them that we work for them. And should do right by them. Not for a party a nominee or an administration. I believe that the fair thing to do is to scrutinize these nominees ask the tough questions and push for real answers. And we should air err on themo side of deeper review more robust questioning. Rather than on the side of pointed how they were treated in the past and the fairness to nominees. Being i think its clear this cor nominee is being rushed through in corners are being cut but i want to take some time now to talk about why i will be opposing her and urging all of our colleagues to do the same. I three main reasons and they are, open questions about her tangled finances in potential conflicts of interest strong concerns with her record and her lack of experience and aun clear lack of understanding of basic education issues. Ith it is is deeply at odds with where parents and students and e families across the country want to go. First of all her tangledde finances and the potential conflicts of interest. I mentioned this a bit before. I have never seen a nominee with such tangled in opec finances misses a divorce is a billionaire. In her inherited money is invested along with other members of her family and could potentially be hundreds her holding company. And it they often invest in other holding companies. Ly and it is often very hard to untangle the individual companies she and her family actually on stakes and. In. K its very relevant because we know her family has had Significant Education Company Holdings in the past. Theyd be impacted by the decision she made if confirmed. Not she has told us she will comply with all of our fixed rules should she be confirmed but we still had questions and she still has not fulfilled the committee requirements. We had questions about areas in her ethics paperwork where it is simply unclear if assetsos and the ones that she continues to hold a potential conflicts of interest and we have not been given the full answers. Amily we also want to know more from her about the family trust. She is maintaining positions in. And we have not been given the full answers. And finally, i had raised a number of questions about her failure to put the required Financial Disclosure to the committee and i have not been given full answers there either. Cs secondly madame president. I very strong concerns withd, her record, her lack of experience and her clear lack of understanding of basic education issues. I will take these one at a time. Ommitt the nominees for this position had been people who were committed to students they have a long career dedicated to education and were focused on keeping Public Education c strong for all students in all communities. Betsy devos is very different. She is first and foremost a republican and conservative activists and make a donor. She was chair of the Michigan Republican party. They have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to republicans and conservative groups over the years. Second of all, she has spent her career and her fortune bringing the system to privatize and to defend Public Education and her students and communities. She has no experience with Public Schools except to the work try to tear them down. She has committed herself for decades to an extreme ideological goal to push students out of Public Schoolst. And we can Public Education. She is spent millions of dollars in political donations organizations and super pacs to try to influence elections and policies to encompass that goal. Madame president is not p difficult to pick up where she has focus. Here the signs are usually pretty easy to see. S where she has succeeded in getting her way too often there are weaker, Public Schools worse outcomes and fewer true opportunities for students. In fact the only people guaranteed the benefit when she focuses her attention on a community or estate are the tv stations. They see hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in money for him to attack ads against her political opponents. Her but all people need to do is watch her hearing in our t committee and they can learn everything they need to know. This was a hearing that people across the country heard about. And for good reason. Sho for local newspapers to local news to the daily show to the view and post that then wentho viral on social media a lot ofop people heard betsy devos herself for the first time iner the hearing and they were not impressed to put it mildly they watched as democrats were locked from asking questions in an unprecedented and disappointing attempt to protect this nominee. Was and then on the questions we were allowed to ask they saw a nominee who was clearlysed illinformed and confused and gave a number of very concerning responses to serious and reasonable questions. Lets go through what she said to us. She refused to rule out flashing investments or privatizing Public Schools. She was confused that federal law provides protections for students with disabilities she did not understand a basic issue in education policy. Stud whether students should been measured based on their proficiency or their growth. Ls she argued that gods needed to be allowed in schools across the country to quote protect from grizzlies. Dent and even though she was willing to say President Trump behavior towards women should be considered sexual assaultchos she would not commit to actually enforcing federal laws protecting women andwa girls in our schools. That madame president her hearing was such a disaster it was so clear how little she understood about education issues that a number of people and groups who usually stay on the fence or even sometimes stand with her on some issues could not stand with her anymore. Ing and the parents watching across the country they saw a nominee who doesnt seem tout care about or understand the education issues that impact them and their kids. This takes me to my final point right now on betsy divorce. Her vision for education in america is one that is deeply at odds with where parents and students and families across the country wants to go. Tion at a time when education and the opportunity affords is more important than ever she would take it in the absolute wrong direction eli broad finance the price put it very well. When he said that the risk of stating the obvious we must have a secretary of education who believes in Public Education and we will need to help Public Schools and keep them public. He went on to say and i quote with betsy at the helm of the u. S. Department of educationccol much of the good work that has been accomplished to improve Public Education for all of american can be undone. I completely agree parents across the country want their government and the representatives fighting toothty and nail to improve Public Schools for all students in every community. Betsy is committing to privatizing Public Schools and diverting public funds into taxpayerfunded vouchers that will leave far too many of our students behind. And i will add i have many friends here in the senate representing states that will be severely impacted by a secretary of education who implemented a radical agenda like this. Hat the bottom line is that strong publication is at the heart of true opportunity in america. Something we all strive for. People understand that. And they see that the vision for this job as a direct attack on the Core National value madame president i truly believe this is what has motivated some people around up the country to stand up and speak out. Cial they saw her hearing on the news. And its clear that people across the country care so deeply about education and are so passionate about making sure that we have strong Public Schools. Jus that scene in President Trump to nominate someone like betsy divorce to run department its very close to home to a whole lot of people. It is so deeply offensive it publ the parents of students in our Public Schools it is very hard to see a billionaire who nevero, went to Public School who didnt send her children topo Public School but in a position to work against yourfo interest. For teachers who work so hard every day in the Public Schools its hard to see your work denigrated. Methin for semi others in communities across the country. Something about betsy has led lit a fire under them as abo well. Theyve all decided to do something about it. Ice madame president they had been shut down over the past week. Every office is receiving tens of thousands of letters asking the senate almost 40,000 have come into my office alone. Same millions of people outside petitions with the same message that have been rallied and protested across thend country and millions more posting on facebook sharing it with their friends. Tweeting and doing everything they can to make their voices heard. I want to share just a sample of what ive heard from my constituents. One teacher at 26 year veteran of Washington State public state Public School said she has worked tirelessly at title i Elementary Schools to help children achieve their greatest potential. His if she is confirmed this teacher is terrified. Me another constituent of mine. Tells me she has grandchildrenec in michigan who are at risk because of the reckless policies there. And she does not want to see this is after disaster repeated throughout our regio country. E he and his colleagues didnt even know where to begin laying out their concerns with betsy devos. A fourth grade teacher from spokane washington reach out to me to tell me that she watched the confirmation hearing. She was shocked at how little se she seemed to understand about the issues she faces every single day in her classroom. Those are just a few examples. There are thousands upon thousands in every community in every state it is having an impact every member of this body has felt the pressure. Already two republicans have made it clear that the voices of their constituents had push them into the no column. I know there are other republicans who take what their constituents had to say seriously. Whoave and who had serious concerns about putting partisanshipont ahead of their state and theirre constituents in stress. I dont like that we are rushing into this without the information that we need. But if the majority is going gymnast through we will do everything we can to have a robust debate over the next few days. Im here to say im proud to stand with parents, im proud t to stand with students and im proud to stand with teachers they support strong Public Schools and true Education Opportunities for all. Im proud to stand up and fight back against