[inaudible conversations] the committee on health, education, labor, and pensions will now come to order in its executive session. We meet today for the purpose of considering the nomination of betsy devos to Service United states sector education. We will also consider one amendment that has been filed, by senator murray, on tax returns. And after that we will have a boat to reaffirm our Committee Rules and to approve subcommittees. Im going to take a few minutes to give opening remarks, and then senator murray will have an opportunity to do the same. I know there are others who wish to speak and i want to ensure that they all can do so. So we will make sure that everyone has an opportunity to speak, up to about five minutes. For planning purposes for the senators planning, we will vote on all four measures at about 11 30. We have nine members were on the finance committee and when they are finished with their voting, they will come in and we will vote at 11 30 or a little after. We will not vote before 11 30 for senators were making their plans. If not, all the members of our committee has had a chance to speak before a vote at 11 30 ill be glad to stay after the vote until everyone has had an opportunity to say, to have their say. Now, these are my comments. This is a committee of considerable differences of opinion. But its also a committee that has on big occasions been able to resolve those differences of opinion, usually in a cordial way. Im sorry to say that we are not able to do that this time. We have differences of opinion still remaining on process, and we have differences of opinion still remaining on the nominee. We have a difference of opinion on senator murrays amendment. I have the greatest respect for senator murray, and for each member of this committee. I priced the fact weve been able to resolve those differences and do it in a civil weight in the past, and i hope we can get back to that way of working soon. But i think i have to face the facts and say we disagree about process. We disagree about the nominee, and we are at the point where we need to express those disagreements by a vote. Let me start with the process. My goal from the beginning was a federal, thorough process. The comply with the rules of the Committee Fair and try to treat President Trumps nominee for education secretary about the same way we treated at president obama is too nominee for education secretary. In other words, to apply the golden rule. In my opinion, ms. Devos has complied with our Committee Rules. Shes met with each of us in our offices. She is testified in our confirmation hearing. She has answered our followup questions. Based on my research is the most question education secretary in the history of the senate. Number two is probably me, based on what happened in 1991. Shes provided information about what she owns, about to whom she owes it, about whether she has paid her taxes, about who her Campaign Contributions are, and shes reached an agreement with the office of government ethics which is constituted by law to work with each cabinet nominee and determine if there any conflict of interest. And if the office, the independent Office Judges that there is, then the nominee has to find a way to deal with it. Ms. Devos has reached an agreement with the office of government ethics, and as a result of that, the office says that she has no conflicts of interest. Let me be specific about this process since so much attention has been paid both in the committee and outside about the process. The president nominated his intention to nominate ms. Devos s Education Sector on november 23. On november 30, ms. Devos sent a letter to every member of our committee saying she would be happy to meet with them during december. Many republican members met with her. No democratic never took advantage of that opportunity. On december 12, she submitted her required forms to the office of government ethics. On january 4, a full week before her hearing was originally scheduled, ms. Devos submitted to our committee the paperwork that we require. Our committee requires it five days before holding a hearing on the nominee. A couple of days later the committee was informed on january 6 at her fbi background check was complete. Then on january 9 at the request of the senate leadership, senator mcconnell and senator schumer, and to accommodate their schedule, i moved ms. Devos hearing a week later, delighted to general 20172017. I then scheduled it that day at five p. M. , an unusual hour to accommodate democratic requests. That would accommodate the travel schedules of members who have Martin Luther king Holiday Events the day before. Then on january 17, we had our committee hearing. Ms. Devos testified for 90 minutes longer than president obama was First Education secretary, arne duncan. Nearly 90 minutes longer than john king testified, president obama second education secretary. That on january 19, senators submitted about 1400 written followup questions to ms. Devos. Before that, the largest, well, to take the two obama education secretaries, republicans submitted 53 followup questions for secretary duncan, and 56 followup questions for secretary king. So democrats submitted 255 times more followup questions for ms. Devos and republicans had done for president obama has nominees. And just to complete the things that have happened, on january 19, ms. Devos and office of government ethics reached an agreement. The letter from that office, which i have here and will place in the record says the following following. Thank you, richard. We have reviewed the information presented, and they include an agreement between ms. Devos and the office of government ethics. And then the language of the director of the office of government of ethics says based thereon we believe that this nominee is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest. There is no Committee Rule regarding that office of government ethics report. The president is to have it in place before we are voting on it, which we will today precedent we received it all the more than a week ago. Yesterday morning, january 30, senators receive answers from ms. Devos and she provided Supplemental Information up until last night, and today were holding a vote on her nomination. Suggestion has been made that we should hear more from her, that we should ask additional questions. I have declined to honor that request because i believe she is already the most question education secretary in our history. She is testified for 90 minutes longer either president obama is education secretaries. If the democrats astra 25 times more followup questions than republicans asked of those two secretaries. And on top of that, last thursday, when democratic member of the Committee Said that democrats had had a retreat and decided that none of them would vote for ms. Devos even before she had a chance to answer the 1400 followup questions. So one wonders what the purpose of more questions would be. The suggestion has been made that we need more information on topics of interest, but the purpose of the independent office of government ethics report is to make sure she has no conflicts, and the office as she does not. And that she will do best or sale 102 things that she owns in order to cure any possible conflict of interest. Thats what the agreement says. Weve all seen that information. We seen that letter. We have had it for a week. We might disagree with that. It might our vote, but its there. I dont think its fair to treat ms. Devos so differently than we did president obamas education nominees and i dont see any reasonable purpose for further questions which already answered 25 times more questions than president obamas education secretaries were asked in followup. And those who are asking the questions have already announced that they are voting no even before she could answer the last round of questions that are asked. The objection is she supports Charter Schools. That should be no surprise. The last six education secretaries, the last five president s, a congress four times, 45 states, 43 states have all supported Charter Schools. The objection is that she supports school choice. That should be no surprise that a republican president appoints an education secretary who supports school choice. Both president s bush did. Congress approved the d. C. Voucher program for Congress Approved the g. I. Bill for veterans and the pell grants and the student loans, all of which are vouchers. 45 senators voted for center scotts legislation and my legislation which would give states the opportunity to give low income children more choices of schools with other parents thought best for them. We understand and respect the fact that our differences of opinion on this but it should be no surprise that she supports giving low income children more opportunity of schools. The question isnt whether she supports Public Schools. She said she did, like most americans. Her mother was a Public School teacher. She was a mentor in Public Schools. She spent 30 years helping low income children have options of better schools. I recruited the head of the xerox to be deputy secretary when i was education secretary. He used to tell me it was difficult to reform Public Education from within. She some outside Public Education in that sense, just as david kearns was and is anyone really expect President Trump to appoint someone from the education establishment to be education secretary . Theres a conservative lot of money. Shes been a lot of it helping low income children have better choices of schools. And the office of government ethics, and independent office, whose head was appointed by president obama, agrees she is no of interest if she would divest herself of these items as she is agreed to do there just has a bunch of government no child up in the way we wrote it. We should welcome that. The school board, she trust them, not a National School board. That means no orders from washington to adopt common core. That Mission Orders from washington to adopt a school choice. She said to senator collins which he testified i absolutely support the fact that the state role and state decision what kind of offering there might be with regards to choices in education. Maine has unique situation with stints attended school on the island and rural areas and suggest a right answer for main is visiting us the right, right answer for indian or any other state is just not right. I would not support a federal mandate or federal role in dictating those. One year ago, we did not have an education secretary because secretary duncan had resigned. I urged president obama to appoint an education secretary for institutional reasons. I thought it was not good for a president not to have a secretary accountable to the senate. I knew he would appoint john king. I knew that i disagreed with the john king, but i said to the president that if you would appoint i would make sure he had a prompt hearing and that we would confirm improperly promptly because i thought the president was entitled to his cabinet member. I had as big a difference with john king and continue to, although i respect him, i had a nice talk with them on but they left office. I had as big a difference with them on the role of the federal government in schools as a member of this committee have with mr. Voss. She agrees with what 85 senators voted for women six no child left behind. She wants to reverse the trend to a National School board, stop telling teachers and School Boards how to run their schools. One would think the committee would be delighted with that. I respect my colleagues. I dont question their motives. I dont question their votes but i believe their concerns are misplaced. So just as a major president obama was able to promptly secure a nomination of his choice for education secretary, i would ask my colleagues to allow our new republican president to have his cabinet choice, especially when she has agreed to implement the law we passed fixing no child left behind, just as we wrote it and just as teachers, governors, School Board Members and others supported us doing. Senator murray . Well, thank you very much, chairman alexander. Today i will be joining my colleagues in support of the organization of this committee which i assume will be the first boat at 11 30. I will have won an image to those rules that the first vote will be the vote on confirmation. Okay. Are we debating the nomination or are you debating the excuse me. Thank you, thank you for asking that. Senator murray has an amendment, and following her opening statement, whatever she would like to do, if youd like to offer that a minute and speak to it, we can do that. I would suggest we might spend on20 or 30 minutes debating that and then go on into a discussion of the nominee. But senator murray, youre free to offer that whenever youd like to spirit my question is what we debating right now . You to talk a lot about mr. Foster of a great deal to say about that as well. Im willing to start with that debate now, or if you want to hold that i wasnt sure what, i was confused by what you were doing. I thought were debating the organization of the Committee First and the rules and the and him and im offering, then having a debate on ms. Devos. Im happy to talk about ms. Devos first. Well, why dont you do that might be more appropriate and then when you ready to offer your tax amended we will talk about that. Okay. I will be talking about our amendment on taxes but as you just been a great deal of time talking about mr. Voss, i do want to just say i am really disappointed that we are moving ahead with this vote, despite my reasonable request for a delay. Democrats do have a number of concerns with this nomination. For all i know republicans may have concerns as well. But weve not been given an appropriate opportunity to get the answers to our questions and to do our jobs here in the senate, to do Due Diligence by n nominees and make sure they truly are ready to get to work for the people that we all represent. As we in this room all know well, nominations for secretary of education have historically been moving through in a bipartisan way, with some exceptions they have been people who are committed to students, had a long career dedicated to education and who were focused on keeping Public Education strong for all students and all communities. This nominee is different and are very good reasons why she has become so controversial, why she has been panned across the country, our offices are being inundated with calls to oppose her and why so Many Democrats are standing up to say they think she is at the wrong choice. So i will be voting against betsy devos today, and for the students and parents that i represent, i will be encouraging my colleagues to do the same. I have two major problems with this nomination and want to run through each briefly. First, chairman alexander, i have said to you privately already, we simply have not been given all of the information we need to make a decision as senators charged with robustly scrutinizing a president s nominee. Ms. Devos is a billionaire with extraordinarily complicated and opaque finances, both in her own holdings as well as of those of her immediate family. She has invested in Education Companies for decades. Her ethics paperwork raises a significant number of questions about the companies that she plans to remain invested in. As well as significant numbers of assets that we simply do not know enough about. And she refused to answer basic questions about her finances. In fact, apart and his review of the responses to our question that you just sent to us yesterday, there significant gaps and incomplete answers in my questions about missing information in her Committee Financial disclosure. Ms. Devos continues to simply refuse to answer questions in our committee questionnaire, and it is simply referring the back to her ethics paperwork, which is completely at odds with past practice in this committee. It sets a new and dangerous precedent that dramatically limit our ability to get a full picture of nominee finances and potential conflict of interest. So, chairman alexander, i have to say im extremely disappointed and frustrated that this is happening to this committee. This is the first time i can remember that we will hold a vote on a nominee when the Ranking Member has made it clear that questions about missing information in the committee paperwork have not been answered fully and to satisfaction. We have been able to Work Together for the past several years and its because we worked in good faith and across party lines to make sure we had what we needed to proceed. The chairman is justified in front of his record of accomplishment on this committee over the years, but by building for today i considered this to be an acid break without strong bipartisan record and it will dramatically impact our ability to Work Together in good faith going forward. Because the usual actresses are being ignored here. The right thing to do is being ignored it. This nominee is being channeled through with corn is being cut in with them i know to being brushed aside at a think thats absolutely wrong. Additionally, we just received responses to hundreds of written questions yesterday, less than 24 hours before the scheduled vote and with no time to fully review and ask any followup questions though i will say upon initial review many other responses copied and pasted from previous statements or are simple reiteration of the law, and no two responses at all. So chairman alexander ive been very clear. We