Based on what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was saying on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, it sounds like he’s a no on President Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez for labor secretary, and like we’re going to see yet another filibuster:
“He is a committed ideologue who appears willing, quite frankly, to say or do anything to achieve his ideological ends,” McConnell said on the floor. “His willingness, time and again, to bend or ignore the law and to misstate the facts in order to advance his far-left ideology lead me and others to conclude that he’d continue to do so if he were confirmed to another, and much more consequential, position of public trust.”Foreshadowing a filibuster of Perez, the minority leader, who is up for reelection next year, pounded earlier remarks by the nominee saying it’s sometimes necessary to “push the envolope” when federal law is “muddled.”
“Taken together,” McConnell said, “all of this paints the picture, for me at least, not of a passionate liberal who sees himself as patiently operating within the system and through the democratic process to advance a particular set of strongly held beliefs, but a crusading ideologue whose conviction about his own rightness on the issues leads him to believe the law does not apply to him. Unbound by the rules that apply to everyone else, Mr. Perez seems to view himself as free to employ whatever means at his disposal, legal or otherwise, to achieve his ideological goals.”
Previously, Republican senators have said they object to Perez because he testified after the fact about a decision he wasn’t involved in and which two investigations have said was appropriate, but which allows Republicans to link Perez’s name with the New Black Panther Party so they’re going to keep talking about it despite it being a non-story with which he was not involved anyway. Also, Sen. Tom Coburn is upset about a requirement that some doctors provide translators for patients who don’t speak English, and Republicans claim that Perez misled senior officials and covered up his motivation in a housing discrimination case in which he in fact consulted with a series of senior officials before taking action.
Basically, Perez is an Obama nominee who’s tough and effective in service of vulnerable people, not those in power. Being an Obama nominee is reason enough for many Republican senators to oppose him. But being tough and effective for people who aren’t rich or powerful? That’s really not to be tolerated.
This article was originally posted on the Daily Kos on May 8, 2013. Reprinted with Permission.
About the Author: Laura Clawson is an editor at the Daily Kos.
