Senators voted 51-47 Thursday to move Linda McMahon's nomination for Education secretary to a final vote.
The final vote to confirm McMahon, the former CEO of World Wresting Entertainment, will likely take place next week, The Hill reported. McMahon's nomination was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last week on a party-line vote.
"President [Donald] Trump believes that the bureaucracy in Washington should be abolished so that we can return education to the states, where it belongs," McMahon said, The Hill reported. "I wholeheartedly support and agree with this mission."
McMahon, who served as the director of the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term, faced questions from Democrats about her lack of education experience.
Trump has called for eliminating the Department of Education. He told reporters earlier this month that McMahon was chosen "to put herself out of a job [in the] Education Department."
"The Department of Education's a big con job," Trump said.
Before Trump took office, anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal that an executive order was drafted that would direct the Education secretary to draft a plan for ending the department along with a vote by Congress to approve it.
Trump proposed shuttering the Education Department in his first term from 2017-2021, but Congress did not act. The agency employs 4,245 and spent $251 billion in the most recent year.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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