Obama Nominates Justice Aide for Labor Post

WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Monday that he would nominate Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, to be the next secretary of labor, a choice that promised to provoke a debate with Republicans about voting rights, immigration and discrimination.

Mr. Perez would replace Hilda L. Solis as head of the Labor Department at a time when the president has promised to create more jobs and overhaul immigration policy. Mr. Obama presented Mr. Perez, who would be the only Hispanic in the cabinet, as an American immigration success story whose own history would help him tackle the issues of the day.

“Like so many Americans, Tom knows what it’s like to climb the ladder of opportunity,” Mr. Obama said with Mr. Perez at his side during a ceremony in the East Room on Monday morning. “He’s 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,” the president added, “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.”

Republicans quickly criticized Mr. Perez, suggesting that he may undergo tough scrutiny in confirmation hearings. Critics described Mr. Perez as a radical legal activist who has presided over a politically charged division and has tried to help illegal immigrants avoid detection and receive public benefits.

“This is an unfortunate and needlessly divisive nomination,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. “The top priority of the secretary of labor should be to create jobs and higher wages for American workers. But Mr. Perez has aggressively sought ways to allow the hiring of more illegal workers. Mr. Perez has also had a controversial tenure at the Department of Justice, where he has demonstrated a fundamentally political approach to the law.”

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the committee that will consider Mr. Perez’s nomination, issued a more cautious statement, saying he looked forward to meeting the nominee and examining his record. “Any nominee for this position should be ready and able to work with both parties in Congress to make it easier for the private sector to create good jobs for the 12 million workers still unemployed now more than three and a half years after the recession ended,” Mr. Alexander said.

The president’s announcement came just days after a Justice Department inspector general’s report found that the voting rights section has been torn by “deep ideological polarization” with liberal and conservative factions in sharp conflict. The divisions date back to the George W. Bush administration, and most occurred before Mr. Perez was confirmed in October 2009. He portrayed the report as largely clearing the section on his watch.

But the report also raised questions about testimony he gave, and Republicans made clear that they would take issue with his handling of some cases over the last three and a half years. His critics question, for example, whether he acted inappropriately in persuading the City of St. Paul to drop a lawsuit seeking to limit fair housing claims when there is no intentional bias.

Liberals and labor leaders hailed Mr. Perez, calling him a champion for workers and those who have faced discrimination. “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,” said Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

James P. Hoffa, general president of the Teamsters, called Mr. Perez “the right choice” because of his history of advocacy. “In these difficult economic times,” Mr. Hoffa said, “workers need a fighter at the Labor Department who will stand up for them, and they are getting just that with Thomas Perez.”

While at the Justice Department, Mr. Perez has pursued a record number of discrimination or brutality claims against local police and sheriff’s departments, including that of Joe Arpaio, the outspoken sheriff in Maricopa County, Ariz., who was accused of “a pattern of unlawful discrimination” against Latinos.

Mr. Perez also challenged voter identification requirements imposed by South Carolina and Texas, and his division reached the three largest residential fair lending settlements in the history of the Fair Housing Act. Under him, the voting section participated in the most new litigation in the last fiscal year than in any previous year.

He has spent a career fighting discrimination cases as a federal prosecutor, then, under President Bill Clinton, as deputy chief of the Civil Rights Division, and finally as head of civil rights enforcement at the Health and Human Services Department. Mr. Perez also served as an elected council member in Montgomery County, Md., and as the state’s secretary of labor, licensing and regulation.

Though his father died when he was 12, his family pressed the value of education so much that all four of his siblings became doctors. Mr. Perez, 51, graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School.

“My parents taught my four siblings and me to work hard, to give back to our community and to make sure that the ladder of opportunity was there for those coming after us,” Mr. Perez said at the White House on Monday as he addressed the crowd in both English and Spanish. “Over my career, I’ve learned that true progress is possible if you keep an open mind, listen to all sides and focus on results.”

The timing of the inspector general’s report on the voting section seems to ensure that it will come up during Mr. Perez’s confirmation hearings. The report found a toxic environment in which conservatives and liberals fought and maligned one another through the Bush administration and into the Obama administration.

The examples it cited generally preceded Mr. Perez, and he wrote the inspector general that he had made a point of correcting the situation. “Since 2009, the Civil Rights Division and the Voting Section have undertaken a number of steps to improve the professionalism of our workplace and to ensure that we enforce the civil rights laws in an independent, evenhanded fashion,” Mr. Perez wrote.

The inspector general, however, raised questions regarding Mr. Perez’s testimony about a case that preceded his time. Mr. Perez told the Civil Rights Commission in 2010 that no senior department officials were involved in a 2009 decision not to pursue further a case of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panthers. But the report noted that in fact senior officials did participate in discussions about the case, although the final decision was made by career lawyers as Mr. Perez had testified.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the report showed that Mr. Perez was “woefully unprepared to answer questions” about a matter that he expected to be asked about. “This is troubling as it suggests a failure to also prepare for hearings before Congress, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, when questioned on this same topic,” he said in a statement.

Moreover, Mr. Grassley said the report made clear that Mr. Perez had not done as much as he had said to end harassment of conservatives in the voting rights section. “The reports shows that despite claims that it’s a new era in the Civil Rights Division, they are sadly mistaken, and it’s business as usual,” Mr. Grassley said.

While conservatives have called him a radical, Mr. Perez has not backed off his aggressive approach, even as his name was up for consideration for the Labor Department job. Just last Thursday, he announced an investigation into excessive force complaints against the Cleveland Police Department.