as NEA President until September 1, 2020, when she was succeeded by Becky Pringle. Eskelsen García is a national leader among Hispanic educators; she addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Conference in September 2008. Her education advice for parents has been published in Time, Working Mother, and Woman's World, and she has been featured on Fox News's Hannity & Colmes and CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight. She has been the invited keynote speaker for hundreds of education events across the United States and was highlighted by Education World in their "Best Conference Speakers" edition. She writes a blog, "Lily's Blackboard," covering the latest education issues. Her union leadership has included writing protest songs, such as one about the No Child Left Behind Act. As vice president, she has been part of NEA's recent emphasis on working with the American labor movement; she appeared in Washington, D.C. on December 10, 2009, with labor leaders from the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO to speak out against taxing health-care benefits, where she said, "We should tax the millionaires, not teachers and bus drivers." Personal life She was married to Ruel Eskelsen, who died in 2011. She is currently married to graphic artist Alberto Garcia with whom she published the 2014 book, Rabble Rousers: Fearless Fighters for Social Justice. Politics and controversy In 1998, she was the first Hispanic person to be chosen as the Democratic Party's nominee for a U.S. Congressional seat in Utah, raising almost $1 million, and receiving 45% of the vote, ultimately losing to incumbent Merrill Cook in the general election. In 2000, she served as a member of President Bill Clinton's White House Strategy Session on Improving Hispanic Education, and in 2011, President Obama named her a member of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. In November 2015, Eskelsen Garcia received backlash for comments she made during the Campaign for America's Future Awards Gala. During a speech, she said, "We diversify our curriculum instruction to meet the personal individual needs of all of our students, the blind, the hearing impaired, the physically challenged, the gifted and talented, the chronically tarded and the medically annoying." Several organizations, including the American Association of People with Disabilities and National Down Syndrome Society, called on her to apologize and asked for more open dialogue regarding students with disabilities. Eskelsen Garcia apologized on her blog, saying she had misspoken while trying