From voting rights to labor rights:
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.
Perez, 51, is a Buffalo, N.Y., native who once worked as a trash collector. Since earning a Harvard University law degree, his career has included stints as a Justice Department civil rights prosecutor and an aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., before taking over Justice’s civil rights division in 2009.
At Justice, he has challenged Texas and South Carolina laws requiring voters to show photo identification and sued the office of outspoken Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, alleging that Latinos were racially profiled during a crackdown on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
“He has spent his career fighting for working families, protecting our important civil rights laws and turning around troubled agencies,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Perez angered conservative voter fraud conspiracy promoters (John Fund of the WSJ) because Perez enforced the Voting Rights Act. Obviously, as we have learned since the smear campaign against Perez, conservatives oppose the Voting Rights Act.
FlipYrWhig
I really like what I’ve heard about Thomas Perez. I hope he has a bright future.
rikyrah
he’s a good guy.
a good public servant.
PeakVT
Good news. However, the “deal” to end filibusters of executive branch nominations may not be very stable. Can’t say I would be disappointed if it failed.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Cordray is really good too. He can do that job and then be governor and then…President. So that’s taken care of.
He got big headlines for the confirmation in Ohio.
catclub
@PeakVT: I noticed that. I also noticed that the vote to end debate got exactly 60 votes. Just one vote wrong and the deal could blow up.
catclub
@Kay: Wasn’t there also a doctor ( who seemed to be very impressive) who was going to be head of one of the Medicare Cost Management boards, but that got screwed by the filibusters? I wonder if he will be renominated.
dmsilev
@PeakVT: Fun question: If it blows up, will Senator McCain hold a grudge against President Obama or against Mitch McConnell?
(trick question; the answer is ‘yes’)
BC
Can’t help thinking that, by so vociferously opposing Perez, the Republicans are only digging themselves in deeper with the Latino community. It’s almost like they forget they need to placate the Latino community on days when they’re not talking about how to speak to the Latino community. Almost like they don’t really want to deal with the Latino community, but know their future will depend on getting some votes from there.
burnspbesq
Now lets get some NLRB members confirmed so they can moot the Noel Canning case before the Supremes can get their hands on it. The consensus of opinion at SCOTUSBlog is that they would back away from the breathtakingly radical D.C. Circuit opinion, but I’m a little gun-shy.
Kay
@BC:
I keep hearing that there is there is this disconnect between Latino media and what “we” (I) hear and see. Because that was so evident in the 2012 election, the disconnect between what was actually happening and what the national media narrative was, I tend to believe that Republicans are simply not getting information.
That happened.
Redshirt
What were the conditions of this deal? I don’t understand what happened – what did the Repukes get out of it?
burnspbesq
@Redshirt:
Obama withdrew the nominations of the two people he recess-appointed to the NLRB at the end of last year. The two replacements look pretty good from a labor perspective; one is the GC of the AFL-CIO.
Oh, and Reid didn’t actually push the red button.
Napoleon
@Redshirt:
All the Republicans really got out of it is that the filibuster was not blown up, which means even if they still ultimately give in and vote for closure on things that will pass anyways, well most of the time at least, they can use the process to slow everything down. The Dems also threw them a meaningless bone in that 3 NLRB nominees were withdraw but Obama can nominate anyone (like, say, Bill Ayers) and they have to bring him to a vote, so that is a meaningless concession.
Chat Noir
@Kay: And he’s a Michigan State alumnus, like myself. James Madison College major which means he was (is) a brainiac. Go Green!
Seriously, though, I’ve read what you’ve written about him and I hope he has a future on the national scene.
patroclus
@catclub: The six Republicans who voted for cloture were McCain, Murkowski, Collins, Alexander, Corker and Kirk. It would seem that McConnell does not seem to feel as though he was a party to the deal and that it is more or less up to McCain to gather the votes necessary on each and every cloture vote.
@burnspbesq: I don’t think the case will be mooted because at least one of the NLRB members who was recess appointed still has a year and a half of her term to run. Yes, she was withdrawn from a permanent appointment, but she is still serving and presumably will be as a recess appointment when the SCOTUS takes up the case this October.
gelfling545
Finally, a mention of this area that doesn’t include snow or Paladino (who is now on our school board for sweet Jesus’ sake). For this alone, Mr. Perez, thank you.