WASHINGTON ? ?
Thomas E. Perez, the former Maryland labor secretary nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Labor, faced pointed questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday about whether politics influenced his decisions as the head of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Justice Department.
The 51-year-old Takoma Park man, nominated last month by President Barack Obama, said his top focus if confirmed would be on the economy and job creation, enforcing wage and workplace safety laws and reauthorizing federal job training programs.
"We can all agree on the need to create jobs and strengthen the middle class," said Perez, the only Hispanic Obama has named to his second-term cabinet. "I've always tried to listen more than I talk, to approach contentious issues with an open mind."
But the longtime civil rights attorney was also questioned about his involvement in what Republicans described as a dubious agreement he brokered at the Justice Department last year in which the federal government agreed to withdraw from a case against the City of St. Paul if city leaders dropped another lawsuit that was headed to the Supreme Court.
"That seems to me to be an extraordinary amount of wheeling and dealing outside the of the normal responsibilities of the assistant attorney general for civil rights," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.
"You're manipulating the legal process to try to get the result you want from the Supreme Court in a way that's inappropriate," Alexander said.
Days before the hearing, Republican lawmakers released a 63-page report that explored the Civil Rights Division's decision to drop out of a whistle blower case against the City of St. Paul if city leaders withdrew a housing discrimination case that was headed for the Supreme Court.
Perez was concerned the housing discrimination case might lead to a precedent that would undermine future civil rights litigation.
Republicans say the federal government could have recovered $200 million in misspent taxpayer funds if the Justice Department pursued the cases.
But Perez noted those funds would have been recovered only if the government had won ? and career attorneys at the department had determined that was a tall order.
He also said he cleared the decision to pull out of the case with ethics officials at the department.
"I believe that the resolutions reached in this case were in fact in the interest of justice," Perez said.
Perez also was questioned about e-mails to a reporter at The New York Times in which he noted the settlement in the landmark case against Countrywide Financial before that settlement had been made public. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have subpoenaed Perez's personal e-mails.
But it's unclear whether any of the issues raised Thursday would tank Perez's confirmation. Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, said the committee will meet next week to vote on Perez's confirmation.
Perez, who in 2002 became the first Latino to win a seat on the Montgomery County Council, launched a brief run for Maryland attorney general in 2006. He was knocked off the ballot by the state Court of Appeals, which found he lacked the 10 years' legal experience in Maryland required by the state constitution.
Gov. Martin O'Malley then picked Perez to serve as the state's labor secretary, a job Perez held from 2007 until 2009.
In Maryland, Perez used the labor department to implement regulations aimed at stemming the foreclosure crisis.
He pushed to shift oversight of adult education programs to his agency, a move that led to a turf battle with state education officials. And he beefed up enforcement of the state's minimum wage law.
If confirmed, Perez would take over the Labor Department at an important time. The department will be a key player in the administration's plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, an effort that has gained momentum on Capitol Hill. Obama has also proposed raising the minimum wage.
john.fritze@baltsun.com
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