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SAN DIEGO--Liz Cheney, who courageously served on the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, urged an audience of education leaders to consider running for office.

“I would ask you to please consider ... putting your own names on the ballot,” Cheney said in her keynote speech at the 67^th Annual Fall Conference of the Council of the Great City Schools in San Diego.

“If you have any inclination at all, and if you believe in the Constitution – that’s key – please, please think carefully about how you might contribute.”

Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, represented Wyoming in the U.S. House from 2017 to 2023.

In a Q&A, Fresno school board member Valerie Davis sought Cheney’s advice on behalf of education leaders who are “on the front lines of culture wars in their respective communities.”

She asked, “What can you share about the courage it takes to stand on your beliefs, despite public pressure? How did you muster the courage to do that in Congress?”

Cheney demurred somewhat, saying, “I think about the decisions that I have made more as a duty than as an example of courage.” She defined courage more traditionally, “as what our men and women in uniform do.”

At the same time, she emphasized “the importance of just doing the next right thing,” explaining, “Sometimes a huge and overwhelming challenge really can be met by just resolving, ‘Every day I’m going to get up, and I’m going to do the next right thing.”

Davis asked, “What is the state of our democracy?”

Cheney responded that she is “very worried.” She characterized former president Donald Trump as “attempting to unravel some of the most important elements of our democracy.”

Americans cannot take “for granted that American democracy will always function,” she said. “I think our democracy is based on a two-party system that can engage in debate about the issues that matter most.”

She referenced a comment made by Democrat Jamie Raskin from Maryland, a colleague on the Select Committee.

“He said, ‘Liz, I really look forward to the day when you and I can be on opposite sides again, when we are back to the point where we are debating issues. We’ll know that we’ve righted the democracy.’”

Cheney added her wish that the nation can once again embrace “lessons about civility and compassion” that she regards as important in public discourse.