WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as education secretary by a razor-thin margin Tuesday, with Vice President Mike Pence casting an unprecedented vote to break a 50-50 tie on a cabinet nomination. It is also the first time in history that an education secretary has ever been confirmed without bipartisan support.
No Democrats voted for DeVos’s nomination, and two Republicans crossed party lines to oppose her, saying they believed she was too inexperienced and narrowly focused on school choice issues like charter schools and vouchers to adequately support public schools.
But a frantic effort by Democrats — including a deluge of phone calls from constituents and 24 straight hours of anti-DeVos speeches on the Senate floor — failed to convince a third Republican to jump ship and kill the nomination. That left Pence with the deciding vote, the first time in Congressional history that a vice president has broken a tie on a cabinet nominee.
republican politicians suck tbh
Betsy DeVos Is Confirmed As Education Secretary, Thanks To An Unprecedented Tie-Breaking Vote