WASHINGTON - -Thomas E. Perez, the Maryland lawyer picked by President Barack Obama for the administration's most important civil rights post, is expected to win Senate confirmation today after months of delay.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has scheduled an afternoon vote on Perez's nomination to head the Civil Rights division at the Justice Department. The nomination is expected to be approved by a comfortable margin, according to aides to Maryland Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin.
Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have signaled their intention to reinvigorate the Civil Rights Division, whose 300 lawyers enforce laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion and national origin. They also oversee voting rights cases, which are likely to increase after next year's census and the resulting redistricting.
As part of a renewed enforcement push against bias in housing, lending and hiring practices, traditional areas of emphasis for the division, the administration wants to hire 50 more civil rights attorneys. Under the Bush administration, Republican appointees were accused by the Justice Department's inspector general of using ideological litmus tests to pack the division with conservative lawyers.
Obama has pledged to "restore professionalism" to the division, but his efforts to revamp the office have been hampered by Republican stalling tactics on the Perez nomination.
It's been more than six months since the president chose Perez, Maryland's Labor, Licensing and Regulation secretary, to be assistant attorney general for civil rights.
The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared his nomination in early June, but Perez immediately got trapped by Republican delaying tactics, which have blocked action on a number of nominees for key Justice Department positions and federal judgeships.
Still stalled by Republican delays is U.S. District Judge Andre Davis of Baltimore, whose nomination for a seat on the Court of Appeals was approved by the Judiciary committee on June 4, the same day as Perez's, but has yet to be scheduled for a confirmation vote by the full Senate.
Perez, who turns 48 on Wednesday, joined Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley's cabinet in January 2007. Before that, the Harvard Law School graduate served as president of the Montgomery County Council and ran for state attorney general in 2006 until the Maryland Court of Appeals disqualified him because he hadn't practiced law in Maryland for 10 years.
