As a divided U.S. Senate voted to confirm controversial Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador signed onto a bill to mothball DeVos’ agency.
The one-sentence bill, authored by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., reads as follows: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.”
Labrador, R-Idaho, is among seven Republican co-sponsors.
“I’ve always been a proponent of empowering parents, teachers and local school boards who best know our children and their needs,” Labrador said in a Massie news release. “Eliminating the U.S. Department of Education is the most important step we in Congress can take in returning decisionmaking to the local level.”
Shutting down the federal Education Department is an old idea in some Republican circles — dating back to the agency’s infancy in 1980. President Reagan pushed to mothball the department in his first year in the White House, but the proposal went nowhere.
On the campaign trail, President Trump spoke of either eliminating the Education Department, or scaling back the agency.
