Moderate GOP Senators Try to Block Shutdown of Dept. of Ed

Moderate Republicans in the Senate Committee on Health, Education and Pensions have introduced two bills that would prohibit outsourcing certain education programs from the U.S. Department of Education to other federal agencies, blocking a complete shutdown of the federal agency.

Under bill S. 5046, sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the Education Department could not transfer offices that oversee special education, postsecondary education, elementary and secondary education, and Native American education programs.

The bipartisan measure would prevent federal agencies from using existing interagency agreements, contracting, and transfer authorities to circumvent bans on interagency agreements. A separate bill—the Special Education Administration Protection Act—filed by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., would bar the Education Department from outsourcing special education programming to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Cassidy, a physician, is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at the Center for Education Policy for the Heritage Foundation, called the Republican decision to undermine the agenda of President Donald Trump, who has long wanted a complete shutdown of the department, a byproduct of accepting money from a major teachers’ union.

“Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins—the same two Republicans who voted against confirming Betsy DeVos in 2017—are now locking arms with Democrats on the Senate HELP Committee to keep key programs trapped inside the Department of Education instead of shifting them to other agencies and returning education to the states,” DeAngelis told the Daily Signal. “Both have taken money from the National Education Association, the same teachers’ union that endorsed Democrat Jimmy Carter in exchange for his promise to create the Department of Education in the first place.”

In his statement, DeAngelis added that Murkowski “even received the NEA’s formal endorsement,” and that by “defending this centralized bureaucracy, they’re siding with other politicians controlled by the teachers union monopoly—which wants a national system precisely so it can more easily exert control over public schools nationwide.”

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“They are standing in the way of the American people’s agenda to return education back to the states,” the research fellow continued. “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”

The Senate HELP Committee is scheduled to consider both bills during a July 30 executive session meeting.

Murkowski, Collins, and Cassidy did not reply to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Since May 2025, the Education Department, under the Trump administration, has created 14 interagency agreements with other federal agencies to outsource certain day-to-day responsibilities in K-12 and higher education.

While interagency agreements have long been used for coordination and collaboration among federal offices, these partnerships shift core education functions to outside agencies and have caused controversy as critics predict they will sow confusion and reduce federal accountability.

Further, the moves are widely seen as steps toward the Trump administration’s goal of fully dismantling the Education Department.

Meanwhile, in the lower chamber, the House Education and Workforce Committee on July 15 approved 10 Republican-led bills to codify several of the interagency agreements by permanently and fully shifting those education activities out of the Education Department. Special education and civil rights activities were not included in that legislative package.