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How To Call Everyone Who Confirmed Betsy DeVos

by Cate Carrejo
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images

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:

  1. Jeff Sessions — (202) 224-4124
  2. Richard Shelby — (202) 224-5744
  3. Dan Sullivan — (202) 224-3004
  4. Jeff Flake — (202) 224-4521
  5. John McCain — (202) 224-2235
  6. John Boozman — (202) 224-4843
  7. Tom Cotton — (202) 224-2353
  8. Cory Gardner — (202) 224-5941
  9. Marco Rubio — (202) 224-3041
  10. Johnny Isakson — (202) 224-3643
  11. David Perdue — (202) 224-3521
  12. Mike Crapo — (202) 224-6142
  13. Jim Risch — (202) 224-2752
  14. Todd Young — (202) 224-5623
  15. Joni Ernst — (202) 224-3254
  16. Chuck Grassley — (202) 224-3744
  17. Jerry Moran — (202) 224-6521
  18. Pat Roberts — (202) 224-4774
  19. Mitch McConnell — (202) 224-2541
  20. Rand Paul — (202) 224-4343
  21. Bill Cassidy — (202) 224-5824
  22. John Kennedy — (202) 224-4623
  23. Thad Cochran — (202) 224-5054
  24. Roger Wicker — (202) 224-6253
  25. Roy Blunt — (202) 224-5721
  26. Steve Daines — (202) 224-2651
  27. Deb Fischer — (202) 224-6551
  28. Ben Sasse — (202) 224-4224
  29. Dean Heller — (202) 224-6244
  30. Richard Burr — (202) 224-3154
  31. Thom Tillis — (202) 224-6342
  32. John Hoeven — (202) 224-2551
  33. Rob Portman — (202) 224-3353
  34. Jim Inhofe — (202) 224-4721
  35. James Lankford — (202) 224-5754
  36. Pat Toomey — (202) 224-4254
  37. Lindsey Graham — (202) 224-5972
  38. Tim Scott — (202) 224-6121
  39. Mike Rounds — (202) 224-5842
  40. John Thune — (202) 224-2321
  41. Lamar Alexander — (202) 224-4944
  42. Bob Corker — (202) 224-3344
  43. John Cornyn — (202) 224-2934
  44. Ted Cruz — (202) 224-5922
  45. Orrin Hatch — (202) 224-5251
  46. Mike Lee — (202) 224-5444
  47. Shelley Moore Capito — (202) 224-6472
  48. Ron Johnson — (202) 224-5323
  49. John Barrasso — (202) 224-6441
  50. 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.