Obama nominates Justice official to top Labor slot

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama nominated Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez to be the next secretary of labor, choosing a Hispanic lawyer with experience in civil rights and workplace issues to his second-term Cabinet. Obama called Perez a consensus builder whose story "reminds us of this country's promise."

"Tom's made protecting that promise for everybody the cause of his life," Obama said in an appearance with Perez in the White House East Room on Monday.

In choosing Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Obama would be nominating his first second-term Latino Cabinet member. 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.

He has strong support from Latino and labor groups, but could face opposition from Republicans who say his tenure at Justice has been guided too much by political ideology.

The nomination quickly ran into trouble as a Republican senator declared he would block until Republican concerns about Perez's Justice Department tenure are addressed.

If confirmed by the Senate, Perez, who has been head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division since 2009, 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, the 51-year-old Perez was secretary of Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which enforces state consumer rights, workplace safety and wage and hour laws.

Perez's nomination has been expected for weeks, and comes with vigorous support from labor unions and Latino and civil rights groups. Among those at the White House ceremony Monday were AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and Benjamin Jealous, the president of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"At a time when our politics tilts so heavily toward corporations and the very wealthy, our country needs leaders like Tom Perez to champion the cause of ordinary working people," Trumka said in a statement.

At the Justice Department, Perez has played a leading role in the agency's decision to challenge voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina that could restrict minority voting rights. A federal court later struck down the Texas law and delayed implementation of the law in South Carolina until after the 2012 election.

Perez also has Republican congressional critics who can be expected to oppose his confirmation, such as Sen. Jeff Sessions, who called the nomination "unfortunate and needlessly divisive."

Sessions said Perez "has aggressively sought ways to allow the hiring of more illegal workers."

Sen. David Vitter said put a hold on the nomination because Perez enforced Louisiana's voting rights laws in a way "that specifically benefits the politics of the president and his administration at the expense of identity security" of registered voters in the state.

Vitter claims the department made voter registration of welfare recipients a priority while ignoring a duty to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.

Moreover, a newly released report by the Justice Department's inspector general is likely to provide more 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 was not 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 did not intentionally mislead the commission and that the department acted properly.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley 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.

Perez was confirmed by a vote of 72-22 when Obama nominated him for the Civil Rights Division job.