President Trump ran on a clear promise: get the federal government out of America’s government schools and return education decisions to the states.
Two Republican senators just helped Democrats throw a wrench in that plan.
And now two RINOs formed one unthinkable alliance with Democrats.
What the Committee Actually Did
Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) teamed up with Democrat Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) to advance bill S. 5046 through the Senate HELP Committee in a 13-9 vote, prohibiting the Department of Education from moving special education and several other offices to other federal agencies.
The bill would specifically stop the agency from moving the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, as well as the offices of Elementary and Secondary Education, Postsecondary Education, and Indian Education to other federal agencies.
The bill is a direct response to the Department of Education entering into at least a dozen interagency agreements to move certain functions to other departments as the Trump administration waits for Congress to follow through on the president’s campaign promise to eliminate the department.
Officially ending the department would take an act of Congress, since it was Congress that created it 45 years ago under President Jimmy Carter.
Since May 2025, the Education Department has signed 14 interagency agreements with six other federal agencies to transfer many K-12 and higher education responsibilities.
Collins and Murkowski were the only GOP members to join Democrats. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) did not vote. The panel’s chair, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), voted against the bill, saying that while he opposes the transfer of special education programs to HHS, he is open to moving OSERS to the Labor Department.
Murkowski said, “We cannot lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, we’re talking about children, whether it’s children with special needs, whether it’s children in our elementary schools, whether it’s our Native students — making sure that we don’t lose that focus.”
Collins said the bill “keeps the administration of the important landmark education programs at the Department of Education, where Congress specifically put them and where they belong.”
That sounds reasonable on its face. But it is worth asking whether keeping a 46-year-old federal bureaucracy intact is really about the children — or about protecting the machinery that teachers unions and left-wing education lobbies have operated through for decades.
The Administration Pushed Back Hard
In a letter sent to Congress, Education Secretary Linda McMahon made clear the Trump administration has no plan of backing off in its attempt to “wind down” the Education Department, and asked lawmakers for “continued support.”
McMahon wrote, “Since these agreements were signed … they have demonstrated measurable results by driving stronger grant competitions, streamlining government operations, and producing better outcomes for Americans,” adding, “The evidence is clear: these agreements are not expanding bureaucracy; they are correcting failures that too often put process ahead of performance.”
The Education Department called the committee’s choice “entirely premature,” with press secretary Savannah Newhouse saying, “Secretary McMahon promised Congress a proof of concept that is currently underway and delivering results across our partner agencies, and it is entirely premature to sabotage this effort before it has the chance to eliminate bureaucratic barriers and fully deliver the results that our students, families and educators deserve.”
McMahon and other officials argued in the letter that other departments are better positioned to handle education-related responsibilities — for instance, that it is logical for the State Department to investigate foreign influence at American institutions, and for the Treasury Department to manage the student-loan portfolio.
And she has a point. The Department of Education has existed since Jimmy Carter signed it into law in 1979, largely as a favor to the National Education Association. Student achievement has not exactly soared in the decades since Washington took over.
Congress fully funded the Education Department in its spending package for fiscal 2026, rejecting both the Trump administration’s plans for deep budget cuts and for transferring programs to other agencies.
Formally dissolving the department would require 60 votes in the Senate — an unlikely prospect given the current makeup.
Collins and Murkowski Are Playing a Familiar Game
This is not the first time Collins and Murkowski have broken with the Republican conference to side with Democrats on a high-profile vote. Both senators have made a habit of positioning themselves as opposed to the Trump agenda — which their home-state voters keep sending them back to Washington to advance.
But the practical effect of this vote is to lock in the status quo at an agency that has failed American students for generations. The teachers unions are thrilled. The NEA publicly lobbied for the bill. The National Education Association urged senators to “vote yes on S. 5046 to prohibit transferring specified Department of Education offices and functions to other federal agencies.”
That should tell you everything you need to know about who benefits from keeping these offices exactly where they are.
Senate Democrats attempted during the committee markup to include an amendment that would also block the transfer of the department’s Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department, but the change was rejected by a 12-11 vote.
Other offices not addressed in the bill include the Office for Civil Rights, which transferred to the Department of Justice, and the Office of Career and Technical Education, which transferred to the Department of Labor. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) attempted to block all agreements and the Office for Civil Rights transfer specifically — but neither of those amendments passed.
So the Democrats got part of what they wanted, Collins and Murkowski got their press releases, and the Trump administration’s broader effort to break up the federal education monopoly continues — for now.
The legislation faces a long road to becoming law. Competing legislation in the House would instead codify many of the administration’s actions, and President Trump is unlikely to sign into law a measure that directly undermines his policy agenda.
Which raises the real question: what exactly were Collins and Murkowski trying to accomplish here? The bill is not going to become law. Trump will not sign it. The House is moving in the opposite direction. But the vote gives the media a “bipartisan rebuke” headline and gives Democrats a talking point heading into the next budget fight.
That may be the whole point.
The Trump administration came into office with a mandate to decentralize education, cut federal bureaucracy, and return power to parents and local communities. The Department of Education is one of the clearest examples of a federal agency that has grown fat and unaccountable while the students it claims to serve have fallen further behind. Secretary McMahon has been methodically building the case that these functions can be handled better elsewhere — and doing it through legal interagency agreements, not executive overreach.
Two Republican senators just voted to slow that down. And they did it with the full-throated support of the teachers unions.
An Education Department spokesperson said “the era of coddling a failed status quo must end.”
Hard to argue with that.
Sources: Breitbart, Politico, K-12 Dive, Education Week, Inside Higher Ed, Government Executive, News From the States, Collins Senate Office