The president of the Elizabeth Public Library’s Board of Trustees is making a bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress, in a long shot bid to unseat Representative Albio Sires.

Eloy Javier Delgado was born in Elizabeth and he became the first in his family to attend a four-year university.

After and graduating with honors from Fairleigh Dickinson University, he commuted to a job with the state Department of the Treasury in Trenton before landing employment as a public school teacher.

The candidate says these experiences taught him to appreciate the public’s investment mass transit and the importance of organized labor.

Acknowledging that “it has become much harder for a child living in poverty to make it into the middle class” Delgado was inspired to run by the presidential campaign of US Senator Bernie Sanders.

“The destruction of America’s middle class is a crisis that must be confronted head on,” said Delgado, who believes that there has been a concerted effort by corporate interests, aided by many politicians, to shift wages away from the middle and lower classes.

“This trend can only be reversed when there are government officials at all levels of government determined to make policies for the majority of people, and not just the upper classes,” said Delgado.

Sires won the congressional seat in 2006, moving up after seven years in the General Assembly. He defeated Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas to fill a post vacated when Bob Menendez was sworn into the US Senate.

Sires was a Republican elected as mayor of West New York in 1995 who then joined the Democratic Party in 1998.

After completing only one term in the New Jersey Legislature, Sires was selected Assembly Speaker as the result of a deal struck by Gov.-Elect Jim McGreevey, who wanted an ally in the leadership post to block campaign finance reform, environmental protection measures and other popular initiatives.

The district sweeps through parts of Hudson, Essex, Bergen and Union counties, and includes Jersey City, Hoboken, West New York, Guttenberg, Weehawken, Harrison, East Newark, Bayonne, North Bergen, Kearny , Belleville, Newark , Fairview and Elizabeth.

Source: NJTODAY.net