Two Republicans – Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski – joined with Democrats in a push to cement the special ed division within the Education Department.
White House says shutdown ‘proved’ Education Department not needed
Secretary Linda McMahon announced that the Education Department had partnered with other government agencies to outsource many of its functions.
WASHINGTON – The Senate’s education committee delivered a bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s Education Department dismantling, approving a bill that would fully retain key offices – including the special education division – within the agency.
The panel approved the bill with a 13-9 vote on Thursday, July 30. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, co-sponsored the legislation, which was led by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia. Last month, Kaine secured a handshake agreement with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, the committee chairman, to get a vote on the bill.
The measure would create a shield around core Education Department offices overseeing special education and Native American, K-12 and postsecondary education. Key functions and people from those divisions are already being shifted to other federal agencies, to varying degrees and on different timelines.
While the bill may not succeed on its own on the Senate floor, Kaine said it sent a loud message to two important groups: parents of students with disabilities and congressional appropriators. He said appropriators, the powerful lawmakers in Congress who decide how to specifically spend taxpayer dollars, now have a “lot of leverage” in ongoing funding negotiations that could help curb the Trump administration’s reorganization of the Education Department.
“You shouldn’t just hand it off willy-nilly,” Kaine told USA TODAY.
Murkowski, who like Collins is also an appropriator, said she had a “pretty good conversation” recently with Education Secretary Linda McMahon about downsizing the department. But she came away from it unconvinced that the millions of children who rely on the agency’s help can afford to wait for a “proof of concept.”
“We cannot lose sight of the fact that, at the end of the day, we are talking about children,” Murkowski said. “These are issues that have a real-time impact on our children right now.”
In a letter sent to members of Congress on the same day as the vote, McMahon said her efforts were not “adding red tape” but instead “cutting through it.”
“It is a betrayal to American families that Washington politicians are rushing to protect a failing status quo in education when roughly 30% of our students can read proficiently,” she wrote on social media.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, echoed that sentiment. He said he had “no doubt” that even with the agency’s reduced capacity and full-scale reorganization, it remains capable of sending out formulas for federal dollars on time.
Special ed division in the spotlight
Arguably one of the most controversial moves McMahon has made as education secretary was an agreement she signed in June to give the Health and Human Services Department a role in federal special ed programs.
That shift has alarmed much of the disability community, who’ve voiced concerns about potential disruptions from the reshuffling, as well as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial past statements about autism.
A top Education Department official held a call earlier this month with prominent special ed advocates, several of whom came away with more questions than answers. Press Secretary Savannah Newhouse told USA TODAY at the time that a “different building, a different floor, or a different desk” wouldn’t change Education Department employees’ mission to serve students with disabilities.
Yet even Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the doctor helming the Senate education committee, was opposed to HHS having a role in special ed. He argued Thursday that such a change could turn students with disabilities into patients to diagnose, rather than learners to educate.
“This risks reversing decades of progress,” he said.
He offered his own bill in committee to shield just the special ed office from HHS. But he ultimately didn’t bring it up for a vote. He also opposed Kaine’s bill, saying it was too broad.
‘Show us the receipts’
Even if Democrats can’t stop McMahon from functionally breaking apart her own agency, they may be able hold her more accountable for it.
Senators on both sides of the aisle also approved a legislative amendment Thursday that would direct the secretary to provide cost estimates for each interagency agreement she’s signed. If fully passed, her travel funds would be blocked until she shared those price tags with Congress and the public.
Not a single Republican senator on the panel objected to that push. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee who introduced the amendment, demanded McMahon “show us the receipts.”
“Secretary McMahon is duplicating the work her department was already doing by asking other agencies to do it instead, and claiming somehow this makes government ‘more efficient,'” Murray said. “Fine. Prove it.”
Zachary Schermele is the congressional correspondent for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.