Linda McMahon’s nomination for U.S. secretary of education advanced Thursday with the approval of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which voted 12-11 along party lines.
"We need a strong leader at the department who will get our education system back on track, and Ms. McMahon is the right person for the job," said HELP Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., before the vote.
McMahon appeared before the committee Feb. 13 for a 2 ½ hour confirmation hearing where she spoke of her priorities for expanding school choice and skills-based learning, providing more decision-making power to local schools and parents, and protecting students from discrimination and harassment.
She also talked about her openness to making sweeping changes at the U.S. Department of Education, including moving programs like special education oversight and civil rights investigations to other federal agencies.
"We are failing our students, our Department of Education, and what we are doing today is not working, and we need to change it,” McMahon said at the time. McMahon formerly served as administrator of the Small Business Administration for two years in President Donald Trump’s first administration. She was previously president and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Trump and the temporary Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have already made major alterations to Education Department activities, including by attempting to freeze funding to states, canceling research contracts, halting diversity, equity and inclusion funds and programming, and calling for the end of "radical indoctrination" in K-12 schools.
Trump has also said his goal is to close the Education Department — a move that would need congressional approval.
At Thursday's HELP executive session, which lasted about 15 minutes, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he was opposing McMahon's nomination. "I find areas of agreement [with McMahon], but I can't vote for somebody who will willfully engage in the destruction of the very agency she wants to lead. That is disqualifying," Kaine said.
Ranking member Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., also voted against McMahon's nomination and criticized what he said was a move toward an authoritarian society where "all power is resting in the hands of a few in the White House."
"It doesn't really matter who the Secretary will be, because he or she will not have the power," Sanders said.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., before voting in favor of the nomination, said U.S. education has fallen in global rankings. "If we really say we're for the kids, then let's try something drastic," Mullin said. "Let's actually make a change, because we're doing nothing but going backwards, and our test scores haven't improved since 1979. They've just continued to fall."
A full Senate vote on McMahon's confirmation is forthcoming.
