Senate and House Debate Labor Secretary-Nominee Perez’s Confirmation

A Senate committee is expected to hold a confirmation vote Wednesday for Takoma Park resident Thomas Perez as President Obama’s nominee for U.S. Labor Secretary, The Associated Press reported.

Democrats delayed the Senate committee vote scheduled for April 25 due to a threat by Republicans to use a hearing to criticize Perez's handling of a whistleblower case while he headed the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the AP reported.

The House oversight committee was set to take up the issue on Tuesday, The Washington Post's "Federal Eye" blog reported.

Perez, a former Maryland labor secretary and former Montgomery County Council president, declined to intervene in the case as part of a deal that included the city withdrawing a case from the Supreme Court, the AP reported.

Click here to read the full AP report in The Huffington Post.

The Supreme Court case could have jeopardized a Justice Department strategy in pursuing housing discrimination cases.

Senate Republicans attacked the strategy during an April 18 confirmation hearing, Capital News Service reported.

The Senate committee could move the confirmation to the full Senate for a final vote.

Patch asked what people in Takoma Park thought about Perez’s nomination and the confirmation process.

Jessie Anderson, of Silver Spring, said she felt strongly about Perez’s work ethic.

“I didn’t know much about him until I heard Obama talk about his background with his family being Dominican and how he got to be the first person to graduate college in his family,” Anderson said. “I like the idea of someone from around here working hard and rising to the top.”

[Editor’s note: In nominating Perez, Obama actually said: “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."]

Luci Velasquez, works for a cleaning company and was proud of Perez’s Latino heritage. “I think this is what shows that Latinos can do anything they want to in this county,” Velasquez said. “People can come to the United States and if they do things good, they can be whatever they want."

The delay in Perez’s confirmation is more of the “same old thing," Alex Dansby said.

“First there was sequestration, now this—it’s the same old thing," he said. “The government could be so much more efficient if the Democrats and Republicans didn’t feel the need to worry about their parties more than the American people who elected them in the first place. It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is. What seems to matter to them is disagreeing with the other party.”