Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday cast a historic tie-breaking vote in the Senate to seal Betsy DeVos’ confirmation as the next Education secretary, ending an unusually contentious fight over a Cabinet post that has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support.

The 51-50 vote to confirm DeVos comes after the billionaire philanthropist and GOP mega-donor unexpectedly emerged as the most contentious of any of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

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From the start, Democrats have been largely united against DeVos, whom they criticized as an enemy of public education. But a populist backlash against her after her stumbling performance during her confirmation hearing followed by the defections last week of two Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — threw her confirmation into jeopardy.

Just before the vote at noon, Sen. Patty Murray, ranking Democrat on the Senate HELP Committee, exhorted a third Republican to defect from the party to derail DeVos nomination.

"We just need one more Republican to join us..." she said. "One more to help us show the people across this country that their voice matters in this debate."

HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander spoke right afterward, reiterating that DeVos was the most heavily scrutinized Education secretary nominee n history, noting Democrats asked her 1,400 follow up questions after her hearing.

The two Republican defections last week had raised the hopes of liberals, teachers unions and other DeVos opponents that they could sink her nomination. Democrats spoke on the Senate floor throughout the night Monday and into Tuesday in a Hail Mary effort to pressure a third Republican to join them so they could thwart her confirmation.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the fight over DeVos "is about power and the desire to keep power over public education right here inside the Beltway."

He stressed that one of DeVos' strengths is that she's not just another “education bureaucrat” who “knows all the acronyms” and “arcana."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that DeVos understands "parents, teachers and school boards" are best suited to make education decisions — not the federal government.

Democrats should let her "begin the very important work before her without further delay," he said.

But Democrats took their fight to derail the nomination as far as they could. Their all-night debate was not a filibuster, which is a tactic that seeks to delay or block a vote. Instead, it was an attempt to call more public attention to the vote, and increase public pressure on GOP senators who have already received tens of thousands of calls and emails from constituents who oppose DeVos.

With backing from teachers unions, civil rights groups and parent organizations, Democrats held out til the final moment, hitting DeVos hard as a nominee with no public education experience, whom they said had actively sought to undermine public schools throughout her career -- a charge DeVos denied but was never able to put to rest.

"When presented with a nominee who says that public education is a 'dead end' for students in this country, people take it personally," Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat said shortly after 4 a.m., referring to a 2015 speech given by DeVos. "It hurts, because we all know that public schools can be better... but we know it’s not a dead end/ "

He read a letter from a worried educator who noted that DeVos has never been a public school teacher, administrator or the parent of a child in a public school — and has no conception of the inequities facing public schools.

"She has never wrestled with the incredible want for resources, the choices that we have to make every day, all within a city and state with some of the most prestigious and wealthy schools just a few steps away," Reed said, reading from the letter.The 24-hour marathon of speeches concluded at around noon Tuesday, when the Senate began to vote.

Again and again, Democratic senators read letters from concerned constituents, stressing that the messages are just a few of thousands received by their offices. Shortly after 6 a.m. Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed said he received more than 12,500 "calls from Rhode Islanders — an unprecedented negative response to a nominee."

Around 3:30 a.m. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) spoke about DeVos' bumpy confirmation hearing last month. During the hearing, Kaine asked DeVos if all schools that receive taxpayer funding — whether public, charter or private — should be held equally accountable.

"And she said, 'Well, I believe in accountability,'" Kaine said. "Well, that’s not my question. I believe in accountability too."

Kaine said so-called school choice options are supposed to promote competition and "encourage everyone to step up their game."

"But if you hold public schools accountable while you’re taking some of their money away and you give that money to private schools, and you don’t hold them accountable, you’re not promoting fair competition," he said. "You’re not promoting student outcomes. You’re just basically taking money away from public schools and giving it to private schools."
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