Power

Trump Taps Education Secretary From Conservative Mega-Donor Family

Betsy DeVos' family is composed of religious conservatives in Michigan who for decades have helped funnel money into influential political battles, such as local races, ballot measures, presidential elections, and key congressional contests in other states.

Betsy DeVos has served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party and as finance chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She is married to Dick DeVos—son of the family’s patriarch, Richard Devos, who served as the Republican National Committee’s finance chair in the 1980s. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Betsy DeVos, a member of the conservative mega-donor DeVos family, will head the Department of Education under President-elect Donald Trump, the transition team announced Wednesday.

Rewire’s Ally Boguhn earlier this year delved into the DeVos clan: religious conservatives in Michigan who for decades have helped funnel money into influential political battles, such as local races, ballot measures, presidential elections, and key congressional contests in other states. The DeVoses’ almost unparalleled influence in conservative politics includes financing Senate races across the country to assist vulnerable Republican candidates who support their issues; funding crisis pregnancy centers, fake clinics that lie to patients about abortion; fighting against marriage equality; and lining up support for so-called religious liberty measures.

The Hill reported in January that the DeVos family donated $964,000 in hard dollars subject to contribution limits to congressional campaigns and to Republican Party committees at both the state and national level, far outspending the Kochs and the Coors family. A Rewire analysis of the DeVoses’ spending in the 2016 campaign cycle using Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org database found that by March, many members of the family had already donated the maximum amounts allowable by law under the Federal Election Commission’s contribution limits, with the majority of funds going to vulnerable candidates across the country whose Senate seats were key to maintaining a Republican majority.

According to Media Matters for America, Betsy DeVos is the co-founder and current board chair of two anti-teachers’ union state advocacy groups, and she serves on the board of failed Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, a conservative education reform think tank. “Through the DeVos Family Foundation, the DeVoses have given millions to anti-teachers union and pro-privatization education groups; recent tax filings show donations to the Alliance for School Choice, the American Enterprise Institute, the Black Alliance for Educational Options, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the Heritage Foundation, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, and the Institute for Justice,” Media Matters reported in April.

Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence met with Betsy DeVos last week to discuss federal Common Core educational standards and to talk about “setting higher national standards and promoting the growth of school choice across the nation,” according to a news release from the transition team. BuzzFeed reported that some conservative websites and activist parent organizations are already voicing disapproval with DeVos’ appointment due to her support for the Common Core.

Betsy DeVos has served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party and as finance chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She is married to Dick DeVos—son of the family’s patriarch, Richard Devos, who served as the Republican National Committee’s finance chair in the 1980s. At 90, the elder DeVos remains a longtime opponent of marriage equality.

In a 1997 guest column for Roll Call denouncing campaign finance regulations, Betsy DeVos admitted outright that she and her family used soft money with no contribution limits in order to buy influence.

“I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party,” wrote DeVos, according to reporting in Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.

“I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect some things in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues.”