Linda Chavez, President-elect George W. Bush’s pick for Labor Department Secretary, has a decades-long record of anti-affirmative action, anti-pay equity, anti-minimum wage and English-only education positions. Women’s rights groups, labor groups and Latino groups have expressed outrage over Chavez’s nomination. Cecelia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza, criticized Chavez for being “in favor of dismantling affirmative action. She really opposes a vigorous federal role in enforcing civil rights.” AFL CIO President John Sweeney decried Chavez’s nomination as “an insult to American working men and women.” Business interests and right wing organizations have applauded her nomination. Bush’s cabinent appointments, with only a few exceptions, represent the very ideological, right wing of the Republican Party, despite his earlier pledges of bi-partisanship and consensus following an election in which he lost the popular vote and had no mandate. Chavez served as Ronald Reagan’s U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Director from 1983-1985 and became his Director of Public Liaison in 1985. Chavez was soundly defeated for the U.S. Senate in Maryland when she ran against Senator Barbara Mikulski in 1986.
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