Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it is pretty clear. It is pretty simple. There never has been a nominee for Secretary of Education as unqualified as Betsy DeVos. That is clear to pretty much every Member of this body--not that every Member of this body is going to stand up and vote the way that probably their conscience suggests they do. Whether they like her ideology or not, whether they like the hundreds of millions of dollars they have contributed to all kinds of political campaigns or not, they clearly understand that this nominee, from her performance and her lack of depth of knowledge of education, is simply not qualified. As many have said on this floor, based on her confirmation hearing, it appears she has a complete lack of knowledge as to what the Department of Education actually does. She didn't seem to understand the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires public schools to provide free and appropriate education to all students with disabilities. I think that when I first ran for Congress some years ago--I assume it was the same for the Presiding Officer; I know it was the same for the ranking member from Washington State who sits here in this Chamber and who has led the opposition to Betsy DeVos--from my first days in Congress, every time I met with school boards, every time I met with teachers, every time I met with school administrators, with principals, they would talk to me about IDEA.…”