PhotoWASHINGTON — After contentious confirmation hearings, protests across the country and two rounds of voting, Betsy DeVos cleared the first hurdle in her path to becoming secretary of education on Tuesday with a party-line vote in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that advanced her nomination to the Senate floor. All 12 Republican senators on the committee voted for Ms. DeVos, a billionaire with a complex web of investments, including some in companies with connections to federal education policy. The committee voted twice on Ms. DeVos’s nomination after Democrats protested against a vote cast on behalf of Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who was initially absent. The senator said that while she would vote to advance Ms. DeVos out of committee, she would not commit to voting for her on the Senate floor. “From everything we heard, everything we know, and all of the questions that still remain, it is clear to me that Betsy DeVos is the wrong choice to lead our nation’s Department of Education.”

Source: New York Times January 31, 2017 18:11 UTC