Lily Eskelsen García, the former president of the National Education Association, continues to emerge as the odds-on favorite to be Joe Biden’s choice for U.S. secretary of education. As a union officer, Eskelsen García was a doctrinaire liberal Democrat and she certainly would be as a cabinet officer.
There was a time when she held views on a wide range of issues that appear to be anathema to both her and her allies today.
In 1996, Eskelsen García was term-limited out as president of the Utah Education Association, but was elected that same year to a seat on the nine-member NEA Executive Committee. Achieving high-ranking national union office seemed to set her firmly on that career path. However, Eskelsen García had even greater ambitions.
In August 1997, she decided to run for Congress in Utah’s 2nd District. She took a leave of absence both from teaching and her NEA position. By her own admission, she announced her run more than a year in advance in order to head off any Democratic challengers in a primary. In that, she was successful. She won the party’s nomination in 1998 unopposed.
Her adversary in the general election was incumbent Rep. Merrill Cook, a first-term Republican. Running as a Democrat in Utah requires moderate views, but even so, some of Eskelsen García’s positions would raise liberal eyebrows.
She told the Deseret News that she wanted more deficit reduction. “I like the capital gains tax cut and child credits,” she said.