Thomas E. Perez, the likely nominee to be the next secretary of labor, was introduced to organized labor under traumatic circumstances.
Perez was 12 when his father died of a heart attack, and a friend’s father stepped in as a surrogate. The man was a Teamster who’d lost his job, and the union helped support him.
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Perez never forgot.
Now, Perez, 51, a first-generation Dominican American, is in line to lead the Department of Labor. President Obama plans to nominate Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, to be labor secretary, according to two people in the administration familiar with the decision.
White House officials declined to comment on Perez or the nominating process.
Perez has strong labor support and served as Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) labor secretary from 2007 until 2009, when he was tapped for the Justice Department position. Perez, a longtime Takoma Park resident, also served on the Montgomery County Council and was the first Latino elected to the council. He has been the key official under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. handling civil rights cases, the centerpiece of what Holder hopes will be his legacy.
Reached by telephone Saturday, Perez said: “I can’t really discuss it, I apologize.”
Perez would replace Hilda L. Solis, who resigned in January. If nominated and confirmed, he would satisfy requests from Latino groups for representation in Obama’s second-term Cabinet.
Friends and colleagues say Perez has gained a unique perspective from working in federal, state and local government. “That is a very good range of experiences, a lot of perspective to see government at all those different angles,” said Ronald Weich, a former assistant attorney general for legislative affairs and now dean of the University of Baltimore’s law school.
But Perez’s possible nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate, was already drawing criticism from one Republican lawmaker, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa). In a statement, Grassley said that if Perez is nominated, “he should face a lot of tough questions” about the Justice Department’s role in a decision last year by St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a housing discrimination case that was before the Supreme Court.
On civil rights, Perez’s division oversaw voting rights cases against South Carolina and Texas. The Justice Department blocked a law in Texas last year that required voters to show a photo ID, following similar action in December 2011 to block a voter ID law in South Carolina. Both states filed lawsuits in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to overturn the federal action. The court struck down the Texas voter ID law and approved the South Carolina law, but ordered it delayed until at least this year.
The Civil Rights Division also conducted 17 probes of police and sheriff’s departments, the most in its 54-year history.
One of them involved America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff, Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County. The Justice department sued him, his office and the county last year for civil rights violations after months of negotiations failed to yield an agreement to settle allegations that his department racially profiled Latinos in immigration patrols.
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