Today, the Senate voted to confirm Thomas E. Perez as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
Perez’s confirmation, the result of a 72-22 vote, came after the vote was pushed back more than four months from when the Senate Judiciary Committee first approved the nomination, 17-2. The delay was primarily due to a Republican filibuster. In a statement made before the confirmation announcement, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the delay “troubling,” and criticized the Republicans for playing politics with the nominations:
This filibuster of Mr. Perez’s nomination is indicative of the double standard that Republican Senators seem intent to apply with a Democratic President. It is wrong. I am not saying that Republican Senators do not have the power under Senate Rules to do it. I am not even saying that it is unconstitutional. What I am saying is that it is not in the interest of the American people. It is bad judgment. It is misspent time, something we can ill afford.
Leahy continued:
Our delays in considering this nomination have hindered the work of restoring the Division’s independence and tradition of vigorous civil rights enforcement, after the Bush administration compiled one of the worst civil rights records in modern American history and injected partisan politics into the Division’s hiring and law enforcement decisions.
On Perez, Leahy said:
Given that Tom Perez has a distinguished record of public service and a long career advancing civil rights, I have full confidence that he is the right person to restore the Civil Rights Division to its finest traditions of independent law enforcement. He is the first person nominated to head the Civil Rights Division in over 35 years who has experience as a career attorney in the Division.
Perez’s confirmation marks the first time the Senate has approved a senior position in the Justice Department since April, and leaves four other nominations pending on the Senate calendar.
