By John Johnson
Two of President Obama’s long-stalled nominees cleared the Senate today, thanks to this week’s filibuster deal : Gina McCarthy is the new EPA chief, and Thomas Perez is the new labor secretary, reports the Hill and Wall Street Journal . The big question on Perez is how aggressive he will be on… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
A divided Senate confirmed Thomas Perez on Thursday to become secretary of labor, elevating the son of Dominican immigrants who as a top Justice Department official won praise from Democrats for aggressively enforcing civil rights laws and criticism from Republicans for being a liberal ideologue.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — The Senate has easily confirmed Fred Hochberg for a second term heading the Export-Import Bank as a bipartisan pact seems to be holding over seven of President Barack Obama’s stalled nominations.
Senators prepared to cast a second, more controversial vote on whether to end a filibuster against Thomas Perez. He’s Obama’s pick for Labor Secretary.
Perez is a top Justice Department official. Republicans have been criticizing him for not obeying a congressional subpoena that sought his personal emails in a whistle-blower case against the city of St. Paul, Minn.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Labor secretary nominee Thomas Perez was confronted Thursday with tough questions about an alleged “secret deal” he cut with leaders from St. Paul, Minn., during his tenure as a top attorney at the Justice Department.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/RQF8f9PHlY0/
Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez is expected to face tough questions at his confirmation hearing about his tenure as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/plpwaQ6ldzY/
In the report obtained by Fox News, Republican investigators conclude Thomas Perez “manipulated the rule of law and pushed the limits of justice to make this deal happen.”
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/LoK66lDSk-E/
WASHINGTON— In a blistering report, Republican lawmakers sharply criticized Labor secretary nominee Thomas Perez over what they said was a questionable deal he brokered while serving as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The 63-page report, issued Sunday after months of investigation, is certain to provide fodder for Republicans seeking to challenge Perez at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
The GOP lawmakers accuse Perez of misusing his power last year to persuade the city of St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a housing discrimination case before it could be heard by the Supreme Court. In exchange, the Justice Department agreed not to intervene in two whistleblower cases against St. Paul that could have won up to $200 million for taxpayers.
Perez has defended his reason for wanting St. Paul to drop its case, telling investigators that he feared an adverse ruling from the Supreme Court would jeopardize the government’s use of statistics to win housing discrimination cases. The Justice Department also says Perez got proper clearance and made the deal in the best interests of the nation.
But Republicans say the deal was dubious, that Perez misled senior officials about his intentions, and that he tried to cover up the true reason for his decision not to intervene in the whistleblower cases.
Read More at OfficialWire . By Sam Hananel.
Photo Credit: Donkey Hotey (Creative Commons)
From: http://www.westernjournalism.com/gop-lawmakers-blast-labor-secretary-nominee/
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — In a blistering report, Republican lawmakers on Sunday sharply criticized Labor secretary nominee Thomas Perez over what they said was a questionable deal he brokered while serving as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The 63-page report, issued after months of investigation, is certain to provide fodder for Republicans seeking to challenge Perez at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
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More on Barack Obama
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/thomas-perez-labor-secretary_n_3082519.html
By Merrill Matthews, Contributor
President Obama has just nominated Thomas Perez, current head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, to be his new Labor Secretary. It would be the perfect time for Labor to overhaul the way one of its little-known but powerful offices accuses many federal contractors of violating anti-discrimination laws—except that Perez defends such questionable efforts. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Daniel Noe
Rush Limbaugh slams Obama’s latest nominee, Thomas Perez, who is hoping to become Secretary of Labor.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Roberta Rampton and Rachelle Younglai
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, as labor secretary – a job that would give him a key role in the administration’s efforts to raise the minimum wage and reform immigration laws.
Perez, 51, is the only Latino nominated to Obama‘s second-term Cabinet so far. He is expected to face opposition from some Republican senators who say he has been too aggressive on certain immigration issues and too political.
Obama described Perez’s career as exemplifying the American success story, noting Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, helped pay for college by working as a garbage collector and in a warehouse.
“If you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is – you can make it if you try,” Obama said. “Tom’s made protecting that promise for everybody the cause of his life.”
Perez has worked on civil rights issues in a number of government positions, including as labor secretary for the Maryland state government, and as an elected council member for the Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland.
He also spent time working as a special counsel to the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy on civil rights, including immigration reform issues.
Obama urged the Senate to confirm Perez quickly. He said he would be an integral part of his economic team as the administration works with Congress to try to overhaul immigration laws to give the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
Obama also has proposed increasing the minimum wage to $9 per hour from its current level of $7.25, an initiative that the Labor Department has been promoting around the country.
Perez’s nomination was championed by Hispanic groups, which have pushed for more representation in the Cabinet. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By <a href="/author-detail/475">Colleen Curtis</a>
President Obama today announced that he has chosen Thomas Perez, the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to be the next Secretary of Labor. Speaking in the East Room of the White House, the President introduced Perez, the son of Dominican immigrants and a lawyer who helped pay his way through college by working as a garbage collector, to the American people.
“His story reminds us of this country’s promise, that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is — you can make it if you try,” President Obama said. “And Tom has made protecting that promise — for everybody — the cause of his life.”
The President reminded those gathered for the announcement of the three questions he believes all officials should ask themselves every day — How do we make sure America is a magnet for good jobs? How do we equip people with the skills they need to get those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work actually pays off in a decent living? — and said that Perez has already shown his commitment to answering those questions in his work at the Justice Department, where he fought to open pathways into the workforce for everyone willing to contribute and helped settle some of the largest cases ever on behalf of families targeted by unfair mortgage lending.
East Room
11:47 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Everybody have a seat. Have a seat. As I’ve said before, my top priority as President is doing everything we need to do to make sure that we’re growing our economy and that we’re strengthening our middle class. And as I said in my State of the Union address last month, every day we should be asking ourselves three questions. One — how do we make sure America is a magnet for good jobs? Number two — how do we equip people with the skills they need to get those jobs? And number three — how do we make sure that hard work actually pays off in a decent living?
These are the challenges that I’ve instructed my team here at the White House and in my entire Cabinet to focus on. And a position that’s instrumental to tackling these challenges is having an outstanding Secretary of Labor.
So I want to begin by thanking Hilda Solis and her entire team — (applause) — including Acting Secretary Seth Harris — (applause) — for the outstanding work that they’ve been doing over the past four years. Their efforts at the Department of Labor have given more young people a chance to earn new skills, more returning vets the chance to find a job. They’ve looked out for worker safety from construction sites to coal mines. They’ve stood up for workers’ rights to organize, women’s rights to get paid equally for the work that they do. They’ve done an extraordinary job fighting on behalf of working families across the board.
And today, I’m proud to nominate a leader to carry on those efforts as America’s next Secretary of Labor — Tom Perez. (Applause.)
Like so many Americans, Tom knows what it’s like to climb the ladder of opportunity. He is the son of Dominican immigrants. He helped pay his way through college as a garbage collector and working at a warehouse. He went on to become the first lawyer in his family. So his story reminds us of this country’s promise, that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is — you can make it if you try.
And Tom has made protecting that promise — for everybody — the cause of his life. As a civil rights attorney, an aide to Senator Ted Kennedy, a member of the Montgomery, Maryland County Council, Tom fought for a level playing field where hard work and responsibility are rewarded and working families can get ahead.
And this is not the first time that he’s chosen to be a labor secretary, either. We’ve got here today Governor Martin O’Malley, and Martin appointed Tom as Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Labor, where he helped implement the country’s first statewide living-wage law, because he understood that a minimum …read more
Source: White House Press Office
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Filed under: Labor, Job Market, U.S. Government, Barack Obama, Economy, People
By JIM KUHNHENN and SAM HANANEL
WASHINGTON — Seeking to fill yet another second-term Cabinet vacancy, President Barack Obama is set to nominate Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general, to be the next secretary of labor, the White House says.
If confirmed by the Senate, Perez, who has been head of the Justice Department‘s Civil Rights Division for 3½ years, would take over the Labor Department as Obama undertakes several worker-oriented initiatives, including an overhaul of immigration laws and an increase in the minimum wage.
Before taking the job as assistant attorney general, Perez was secretary of Maryland’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which enforces state consumer rights, workplace safety and wage and hour laws.
Obama plans to nominate Perez, 51, on Monday.
In choosing Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Obama would be placing an already high-ranking Hispanic official in a Cabinet slot. Perez, a lawyer with a degree from Harvard Law School, would replace Hilda Solis, a former California congresswoman and the nation’s first Hispanic labor secretary.
Perez’s nomination has been expected for weeks, and comes with vigorous support from labor unions and Latino groups. But a newly released report by the Justice Department‘s inspector general is likely to provide fodder for Republicans who say the Justice Department‘s Civil Rights Division has been too politicized.
The report, released last week, said Perez gave incomplete testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights when he said the department’s political leadership wasn’t involved in the decision to dismiss three of the four defendants in a lawsuit the Bush administration brought against the New Black Panther Party.
The report also concluded that Perez didn’t intentionally mislead the commission and that the department acted properly. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said Perez appeared to be “woefully unprepared to answer questions” from the Civil Rights Commission.
Lynn Rhinehart, general counsel at the AFL-CIO, said the report shows that Perez, who was first hired by the civil rights division as a career attorney under President George H.W. Bush, restored integrity to the voting rights program at the Justice Department.
Seeking to fill yet another second-term Cabinet vacancy, President Barack Obama on Monday will nominate Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general, to be the next secretary of labor, the White House says.
President Barack Obama is poised to select Justice Department official Thomas Perez to be the next labor secretary, according to two people familiar with the deliberation process.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is poised to select Justice Department official Thomas Perez to be the next labor secretary, according to two people familiar with the deliberation process.
Perez’ nomination to the Labor Department could come as early as Monday, the people familiar with the process said Saturday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the official announcement has not yet been made. White House spokesman Matt Lehrich declined to comment.
President Barack Obama is poised to select Justice Department official Thomas Perez to be the next labor secretary, according to two people familiar with the deliberation process.
