Obama nominee to get 'prompt and fair' hearing Thursday
A surprise nominee by President Barack Obama will get a hearing by a Republican-led Senate committee Thursday and has a good shot at being approved.
This has nothing to do with the Supreme Court, however. The nominee in question is John King Jr., whom Obama has formally nominated to become Secretary of Education, succeeding Arne Duncan.
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has scheduled the hearing for 11 a.m. Pacific Time. Hepledged to give King "a prompt and fair hearing."
King, who was New York state commissioner of education for 3 1/2 years before coming to the federal education department as a top deputy to Duncan in January 2015, has been serving as acting education secretary since Duncan returned to his native Chicago at the end of December.
Duncan's confirmation sailed through Congress without a hitch. But Republicans in Congress subsequently grew upset with Obama's pick, after he used waivers to wield greater federal power over state education policy than ever before, including pushing some states to adopt the Common Core State Standards.
As a result, King is expected to face tough questioning about how he would operate, now that Congress has rewritten federal education law to veer away from the strong federal mandates under No Child Left Behind.
-- Betsy Hammond
betsyhammond@oregonian.com Obama nominee to get 'prompt and fair' hearing Thursday | OregonLive.com:
