Buying Senator Pat Toomey’s vote… DeVos can do it, but we can’t

I just tweeted at Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey [@SenToomey], asking what we should make of the fact that, in spite of her unpopularity among his constituents, he’s said he would be voting for Betsy DeVos, a woman who both publicly admitted to “buying influence” and gave him over $60,000 in contributions, to head the Department of Education on Monday.

As of right now, he’s not responded.

This isn’t exactly a surprise. To hear his constituents tell it, he’s become very hard to find these past few days. Calls to his office are going unanswered… which has led to an all-out assault on fax machine, with concerned Pennsylvanians faxing letters by the thousand. The last I heard, the Senator had received over 11,500 faxes, most of which, I’m sure, were urging him to be the deciding vote against DeVos. [As the count currently stands, it looks as though 50 Senators will be voting for the controversial Amway billionaire, and 50 will be voting against her, allowing Mike Pence to cast the deciding vote in her favor.] If you’d like to join in the fun, you can find Toomey’s fax number on the site of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, along with a number of sample tweets that you can send his way.

If he votes for DeVos come Monday, will it be enough to keep him from being reelected? I’m thinking yes. He did, after all, just win his second Senate race this past December by a hair, beating Democrat Katie McGinty 48.9% to 47.2%. And the pressure among his constituents is growing.

A 31-year-old South Philadelphia teacher by the name of Katherine Fritz just a few days ago launched a tongue-in-cheek GoFundMe page with the intention of raising more than the approximately $60,000 that DeVos has paid the Republican Senator. “If Betsy DeVos can buy Senator Toomey’s vote, we should be allowed to do the same,” Fritz told the press. And, it would appear that others agree. As of right now, Fritz has raised $66,751. [The funds, we’re told, will go to charity, if Toomey refuses to accept the bribe.]

Here, by way of Philly Magazine, is an email that Fritz sent to Toomey yesterday.

This, for what it’s worth, is exactly the kind of response that we need to see more of… Resistance is not enough. We need more clever responses like this to the insanity that we’re seeing play out all around us. We need small things like this that point to the absolute lunacy of a system that would allow a Senator who has received cash payments from a Cabinet nominee, to then vote to put that person in office. We need creative ways to expose this for what it is. And, let there be no mistake… Betsy DeVos, possibly the least qualified Cabinet nominee we’ve seen in our lifetimes, is where she is today, very close to taking over the Department of Education, not because of any qualifications that she may have, but because she has invested heavily in the Republican party and people like Toomey. And, as she’s said before, she expects “a return” on that investment.

[For more background on DeVos and why she’s the wrong person to lead the Department of Education, read this: “We should have stopped Betsy DeVos when we had the chance.”]

update: From Jean Henry, who has family in Pennsylvania. While not specifically about the DeVos nomination, I think it illustrates just how tough of a position Toomey is in, and demonstrates how effective public pressure can be. Whether it’s enough to get Toomey to cross his party, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Update from Ben Wideman, a Mennonite pastor in Pennsylvania about a visit to his Republican senator’s office:

Just got back from a visit to Senator Pat Toomey’s Johnstown office with 15 other Borough of State College & Penn State area people to talk about the immigration ban.

Here are my takeaways;
1. Everyone we spoke with was rattled. They have never experienced this much constant feedback. The phones haven’t stopped since the Inauguration and they admitted they can’t check voicemail because there is no pause to do so.
2. Letters are the only thing getting through at this point [Note: I’ve heard that postcards are better because they can impound letters for five weeks to check for contaminants.] Regional offices are a much better mail destination because they compile, sort, and send everything. DC mail is so backed up right now it takes twice as long to send things there.
3. Toomey’s staff seem frustrated with Trump. They said his barrage of Executive Orders are not how government is supposed to work, and was what they hated during moments of the Obama era. One of them said, “We have a democratic system and process. Trump needs to stop behaving like a Monarch.”
4. Our representatives are listening because people are raising their voices. This feels like no other political moment in recent time for them.
5. Toomey’s staffers are far more empathetic than I assumed. Also far more technology illiterate (one asked me how to use twitter, and how we already knew about Toomey’s published statement). They resonate that the immigration ban feels immoral and unAmerican.
6. Regional offices are not designed to handle this volume of unrest.
7. Personal stories matter. Tell the stories of people being impacted by arbitrary religious and ethnic legislation. Staffers want to know.
8. Don’t stop. Do whatever small part you can do to keep raising your voice to your representatives. Not just this issue, but every way marginalized people are being (or will be) exploited under this President.