Linda McMahon, whom President Donald Trump nominated to be Education secretary, is one step nearer to confirmation after the Senate cleared a procedural hurdle Thursday.
Senators voted 51-47 to approve a motion to invoke cloture on McMahon’s nomination, which is scheduled to receive a confirmation vote Monday.
McMahon served as head of the Small Business Administration during the first Trump administration and was previously the CEO of professional wrestling and entertainment company WWE. A longtime Trump ally, she was co-chair of his presidential transition team and has raised millions of dollars for his campaign as chair of the super PAC America First Action.
McMahon received unanimous Republican support, both on Thursday and last week, when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced her nomination on a party-line vote. Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy praised McMahon’s previous leadership experience as good preparation for the secretary role before the committee voted on Feb. 20.
“If confirmed, Ms. McMahon has the tall task of reforming a Department of Education that has lost its purpose,” the Louisiana Republican said. “For the last four years, the department focused on everything but student learning.”
Ahead of Thursday’s cloture vote, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer called McMahon “unqualified” to be in charge of the nation’s public education system. The New York Democrat also bemoaned Trump’s repeated calls to dismantle the Education Department, saying, “Cutting education is not what the American people want.”
At her confirmation hearing, which was interrupted several times by protesters, McMahon said that any such plan would need congressional approval and that she would spend money appropriated by Congress after “taking a look” at funds for programs not codified by statute.
Other Democratic senators speaking out against McMahon’s nomination Thursday included Michigan’s Gary Peters.
“We need a secretary of Education who values and respects public education and the millions of teachers and faculty who support the system,” Peters said. “We need a secretary of Education who will support critical funding streams like Head Start for early education, [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] for students with disabilities, and the school meal program that ensures that no student, no student, goes to class hungry.”
McMahon is a supporter of school choice, or the use of public money for private schools through voucher programs. She also said at her hearing that she hopes to expand apprenticeships and workplace training programs and that Trump hopes to “return education to the states.”
“It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs,” she said. “It’s only to have it operate more efficiently.”
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