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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the never-seen-that-before dept.

Roll Call reports [rollcall.com]

Pence Casts Historic Tiebreaking Vote to Confirm DeVos

For the first time ever, the vice president was called to Capitol Hill to break a tie on a vote to confirm a member of the Cabinet.

Vice President Mike Pence presided over the Senate for the first time since being sworn in just more than two weeks ago, and cast the tiebreaking vote, 51-50, to confirm Betsy DeVos as the next Education secretary. A vice president had never done so before, according to the Senate Historical Office.

The Center for American Progress notes [thinkprogress.org]

The Senators Who Opposed DeVos Represent 36 Million More People Than Her Supporters Do

DeVos attracted bipartisan opposition--Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska cast "no" votes--after she failed basic questions about education policy during her confirmation hearing.

DeVos did not appear to understand the difference [bostonglobe.com] between testing that measures growth (how much a student has learned since their last test) and proficiency (whether a student has reached a certain baseline). She blanked on a major law protecting children with disabilities [thinkprogress.org]. At one point, she said guns might be needed in schools to "protect from potential grizzlies [thinkprogress.org]."

And yet the Senate was evenly divided over whether DeVos should be placed in charge of a cabinet agency that she seems to know little about. That is because the Senate is itself malapportioned to give voters in smaller states much greater voices than other voters.

The Center for American Progress further notes [americanprogress.org]

It's true that money talks, and for the Republican Senate majority, $4 million in donations [americanprogress.org] from Betsy DeVos and her family spoke louder than the voices of hundreds of thousands of constituents that called, emailed, tweeted, faxed, and protested about Ms. DeVos' nomination.

I've noted before that Los Angeles County has WAY more people than Wyoming, yet that sparsely-populated state gets 2 senators, while the entire state of California gets the same count and I mentioned 50 senatorial districts equal by population [archive.li]. Good idea?

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