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How To Call Everyone Who Confirmed Betsy DeVos
Well it's terrifyingly official: Betsy DeVos will be the next Secretary of Education. If you're as mad about that as you should be, this is your chance to let the people responsible know how bad they messed up. Here are all the phone numbers of the people who made DeVos' confirmation happen — put these people on blast for allowing an unqualified billionaire to buy her way into a Cabinet position.
If you hadn't been following along with this confirmation battle, it got really nasty, for good reason. The main objection to DeVos is her support for charter schools, which are shown to further disadvantage students through re-segregation and industry corruption. However, that's not where the questionable policy proposals stop. She's also hesitant on Title IX (meaning universities wouldn't be able to investigate and punish sexual assault cases), seemingly fine with for-profit colleges' predatory lending practices, and has no problem with allowing guns in schools. The United States is already falling behind in global education standards, and rather than try to emulate models that are proven to work in other countries, Congress just handed the national public school system to a person who wants to discourage people from seeking higher education.
There's also the various ethical issues with DeVos, which should have immediately disqualified her from consideration of a Cabinet position. Two former ethics counselors to President George W. Bush and Barack Obama penned an op-ed for The Hill Monday stating their case against DeVos. "Seldom have we seen a worse cabinet-level ethics mess than that presented by Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s choice for education secretary," wrote Norman Eisen and Richard Painter. "Her extensive financial holdings present significant — and unresolved — conflict of interest issues. She also failed to provide the Senate with accurate information about her involvement with outside organizations." It's unclear if Eisen and Painter factored in Devos' political donations to sitting senators, totaling nearly $1 million, but they should have. While technically legal, the fact that a senator who received money from an individual seeking a Senate-confirmable position is mind-boggling.
The list below is D.C. phone numbers for each senator who voted to confirm DeVos, so you should call them to express your opposition. The ones in bold are those who reportedly received campaign contributions from her:
- Jeff Sessions — (202) 224-4124
- Richard Shelby — (202) 224-5744
- Dan Sullivan — (202) 224-3004
- Jeff Flake — (202) 224-4521
- John McCain — (202) 224-2235
- John Boozman — (202) 224-4843
- Tom Cotton — (202) 224-2353
- Cory Gardner — (202) 224-5941
- Marco Rubio — (202) 224-3041
- Johnny Isakson — (202) 224-3643
- David Perdue — (202) 224-3521
- Mike Crapo — (202) 224-6142
- Jim Risch — (202) 224-2752
- Todd Young — (202) 224-5623
- Joni Ernst — (202) 224-3254
- Chuck Grassley — (202) 224-3744
- Jerry Moran — (202) 224-6521
- Pat Roberts — (202) 224-4774
- Mitch McConnell — (202) 224-2541
- Rand Paul — (202) 224-4343
- Bill Cassidy — (202) 224-5824
- John Kennedy — (202) 224-4623
- Thad Cochran — (202) 224-5054
- Roger Wicker — (202) 224-6253
- Roy Blunt — (202) 224-5721
- Steve Daines — (202) 224-2651
- Deb Fischer — (202) 224-6551
- Ben Sasse — (202) 224-4224
- Dean Heller — (202) 224-6244
- Richard Burr — (202) 224-3154
- Thom Tillis — (202) 224-6342
- John Hoeven — (202) 224-2551
- Rob Portman — (202) 224-3353
- Jim Inhofe — (202) 224-4721
- James Lankford — (202) 224-5754
- Pat Toomey — (202) 224-4254
- Lindsey Graham — (202) 224-5972
- Tim Scott — (202) 224-6121
- Mike Rounds — (202) 224-5842
- John Thune — (202) 224-2321
- Lamar Alexander — (202) 224-4944
- Bob Corker — (202) 224-3344
- John Cornyn — (202) 224-2934
- Ted Cruz — (202) 224-5922
- Orrin Hatch — (202) 224-5251
- Mike Lee — (202) 224-5444
- Shelley Moore Capito — (202) 224-6472
- Ron Johnson — (202) 224-5323
- John Barrasso — (202) 224-6441
- Michael Enzi — (202) 224-3424
While those most at fault are the senators who chose not to recuse themselves from the vote after taking money from DeVos, every single senator who voted to confirm her is responsible for the mess that's coming. As if childcare costs weren't already expensive enough (and there's not a whole lot of follow-through rhetoric on Donald Trump's family leave plan), millennials are going to have to find a way to pay for private schools for their kids now too if they have any shot at a quality education.
