Labor nominee in trouble

Red States:

As the Senate takes up Barack Obama’s nomination of  Thomas Perez to replace Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, it seems that Perez is turning into a headline maker–and not in a good way for the Obama Administration.

During his Senate confirmation hearing last Thursday, Perez affirmed what many already knew–but the Obama Administration has been loathe to admit–that the real unemployment rate is actually double what the Administration touts.

To make matters even more embarrassing for the Obama Administration, according to a reportin the Washington Free Beacon, Perez may have illegally been leaking information to outside groups via his personal e-mail.

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said it appears Perez used his personal email account almost 1,200 times since 2009 to conduct official department business, including communicating with organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the New York Times, and Talking Points Memo.

Issa wrote that he received a letter from the Justice Department’s principal deputy assistant attorney general for Legislative Affairs, Peter J. Kadzik, conceding Perez had committed at least 34 violations of the Federal Records Act. [Emphasis added.]

While the revelations about Perez’s possible violations of the law are new, Perez’s radicalism at the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division have been noted for some time.

In July 2011, Perez gave remarks to a National Council of La Raza (NCLR) luncheon for which, according to Bretbart’s Kerry Picket, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee accused Perez of engaging in “political activism.”

To further add to Obama’s embarrassment, while Perez was heading the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, according to a DOJ Inspector General’s 300-page report, there were “bitter divisions and racial hostility” during his tenure.

Although, according to a Politico piece, Perez responded to the criticism by stating  that “the probe did not find sufficient evidence to demonstrate that racial or political bias affected litigation decisions” this hasn’t made Perez any less controversial.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk notes that “every attorney hired at the Civil Rights Division after 2009 has a background in left-wing activism, Perez did not hire one moderate, non-ideological, or conservative applicant.”

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This guys nomination should be rejected.  He is an idealog willing to do anything to advance the evils of liberalism.  He would be a constant irritant in the job of Labor Secretary doing the will of Big Labor and putting their objectives ahead of that of the workers and employers.