Tom Perez

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Tom Perez (2009)

Thomas Edward "Tom" Perez (born October 7, 1961 in Buffalo , New York ) is an American politician and consumer and civil rights attorney. Since February 25, 2017 he has been chairman of the Democratic National Committee , the organization of the federal party of the Democrats . Perez previously served under President Barack Obama as Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division from 2009 to 2013 and Secretary of Labor from 2013 to 2017 .

biography

Origin, education and family

Perez is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic ; His ancestors included lawyers and politicians; his maternal grandfather, Rafael Brache , had been the country's ambassador to the United States in 1930/31. He attended the Jesuit Canisius High School in Buffalo , received his bachelor's degree in international relations and political science from Brown University in 1983 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1987 with a Juris Doctor and a Master of Public Policy from John F. Kennedy there School of Government .

Perez has three children with his wife, Ann Marie Staudenmaier, an attorney with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless .

Professional and political career

Perez has spent his entire professional career in the public sector and never switched between politics and business . He began in 1987 as a law clerk for Judge Zita Weinshienk at the United States District Court for Colorado and from 1989 worked mainly for the Federal Justice Department, particularly in civil rights and labor matters. From 1995 to 1998 he advised US Senator Ted Kennedy on criminal, civil and constitutional law issues and worked in the Department of Health until the end of the Clinton cabinet's tenure in January 2001 . Perez then taught medical law at the University of Maryland , was a member of the Montgomery County Council from 2002 to 2006 , and was an electoral candidate for John F. Kerry at Electoral College in 2004 . 2007 Perez was in the state of Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley appointed Minister of Labor (Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, DLLR). He worked there until he was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General by the US Senate in October 2009 (succeeding Wan J. Kim). It was proposed for Senate endorsement on June 4, 2009 , following a Senate Judicial Committee hearing on June 4, 2009, delayed for several months as several Republican senators expressed reservations. He was ratified by the Senate on October 6, 2009. After the previous Labor Secretary in the Obama cabinet , Hilda Solis , announced her retirement from office in January 2013, Perez was nominated for office in March 2013. After harsh criticism from the opposition Republicans, Perez was confirmed for this position by the Senate on July 18, 2013, as the first member of the government to vote precisely according to party affiliation (54 to 46). His term ended on January 20, 2017 with the handover of the Obama administration to the Trump Cabinet .

Chairman of the Democratic National Committee

On February 25, 2017, Perez was elected as the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In the first vote to the DNC chairmanship for over thirty years, competed in several people, Perez reached as a candidate of the party establishment, the majority in the second round against his opponent Keith Ellison , who liked the leftist Progressive to Senator Bernie Sanders had been considered . Perez replaced the interim chairwoman Donna Brazile , who had been running the business since summer 2016 after the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz . Wasserman Schultz had resigned after it became known that Sanders had been discriminated against in the party primary for the presidential election of the year . Perez then made the defeated Ellison his deputy. He is the first Latino to head the Democratic Party.

After Perez announced that the DNC would stay out of the primaries and not favor internal party candidates, his declaration of support for Andrew Cuomo , the governor of New York , attracted criticism from his party's left wing in May 2018.

Web links

Commons : Tom Perez  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Milcíades Humberto Núñez Núñez: Thomas Edward Pérez: Ancestros dominicanos en el gabinete of Barack Obama. In: Instituto Domicicano de Genealogía , July 27, 2013 (Spanish).
  2. ↑ US Electoral College 2004: Maryland Certificate of Ascertainment , page 1, website of the National Archives and Records Administration
  3. ↑ Civil Rights Division nominee Slated for Senate Vote. ( Memento of March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: MainJustice.com , October 5, 2009 (English).
  4. ^ Bernie Becker: Senate Confirms Key Civil Rights Post. In: The New York Times , The Caucus, October 6, 2009.
  5. ^ Sari Horwitz, Lena H. Sun: Obama expected to nominate Thomas Perez as next labor secretary. In: The Boston Globe .
  6. ^ Remarks by the President Announcing the Nomination of Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor. In: Whitehouse.gov. March 18, 2013 (English).
  7. ^ Rachel Maddow : The historical oddity of Thomas Perez's confirmation. In: MSNBC , July 18, 2013 (English).
  8. ^ Gabriel Debenedetti: Perez elected DNC chairman. In: Politico . February 25, 2017 (English).
  9. ^ David Weigel: Thomas Perez elected the first Latino leader of the Democratic Party. In: The Washington Post , February 25, 2017.
  10. ^ Edward-Isaac Dovere: Perez infuriates liberals with Cuomo endorsement. In: Politico , May 24, 2018 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Perez, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perez, Thomas Edward (full name); Perez, Thomas E .; Perez, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician (Democratic Party)
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Buffalo , New York