New DNC Chairman Tom Perez Is No ‘Moderate’ at All

Perez’s liberal credentials are as impeccable as they come. Mother Jones called him “one of the administration’s most stalwart progressives.” Conservative policy experts who have followed his work in the Justice and Labor Departments consider him perhaps the Obama administration’s most radical and relentless ideologue.

.. Iain Murray, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s vice president of strategy, calls Perez “possibly the most dangerous person in the administration right now.”

.. “His rewriting of U.S. labor law is probably the most fundamental attack on the free-enterprise system going on at present,” Murray says. “If he has his way, we won’t just revert to the 1930s. We’ll do things that even Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t do, like eliminate vast numbers of independent-contractor jobs and unionize those that remain.”

.. Murray sees Perez’s ideological vision as driven by an arrogant insistence that most workers are oblivious to their own exploitation by employers, and need the state to intervene to help them understand proper “work-life balance” or to make basic choices about work.

.. “Perez has shown a glaring inability to tell the truth and dispassionately apply the basic constitutional tenet of ‘equal justice under law,’” declared Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Long before Obama stepped into the Oval Office, Perez stood out as a Democratic lawmaker willing to ignore or contravene laws that impeded his agenda. As a member and then chairman of the Montgomery County Council, Perez promoted driver’s licenses and in-state tuition eligibility for Maryland illegal immigrants.

In 2006, Perez ran for state attorney general and pushed for one of his favorite ideas at the county level, a program to have state residents import low-cost prescription drugs from Canada. But the federal Food and Drug Administration said the program would be illegal, and county attorneys concurred in a formal review, adding, “one need not be a lawyer nor clairvoyant to see the potential for civil liability.” Perez responded that, “Sometimes you have to push the envelope in pursuit of the right thing.”

Throughout his career, Perez has touted “disparate-impact theory” in discrimination law, which contends that discrimination exists in just about any circumstance where statistical data point to a racial disparity, regardless of whether discriminatory intent can be proven.

.. If you think Barack Obama was the worst president inhistory, Matt Margolis has written the perfect book for you, entitled, appropriately, The Worst President inHistory: The Legacy of Barack Obama.

Democrats Elect Tom Perez as Party Chairman

Former Labor secretary, backed by party establishment, defeated Keith Ellison from the party’s populist wing

To help heal the division, Mr. Perez in declaring victory immediately appointed Mr. Ellison as the party’s vice chairman. Mr. Ellison practically begged his supporters to remain in the party and back Mr. Perez.

.. “It is imperative that Tom understands that the same-old, same-old is not working and that we must open the doors of the party to working people and young people in a way that has never been done before,” Mr. Sanders said.

..Keith Ellison was uniquely qualified to transform that anger and fear into political power and organization.”
.. Despite Mr. Ellison’s grass-roots support, large segments of the DNC remained mistrustful of Mr. Sanders, a registered independent whose supporters are aiming to transform the party by installing his acolytes in party posts.
.. The Perez victory ends a four-month campaign to lead the party that few Democrats had expected. Had Mrs. Clinton been elected president, as virtually all DNC members here thought would happen, she would have served as the head of the party and named the new leadership.
.. Mr. Perez has a résumé long on government experience and short on political campaigning.
.. Mr. Perez worked in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division under President Bill Clinton and during President Barack Obama’s first term. In 2013, Mr. Obama named Mr. Perez to lead the Labor Department, a post that made him a favorite of labor unions and liberal activists. But as a member of the Obama cabinet, Mr. Perez backed the Trans Pacific Partnership and other trade deals opposed by the party’s base.
.. He entered the DNC race weeks after Mr. Ellison with the encouragement of Obama allies
.. Haim Saban, an Israeli-American donor who funded the construction of the DNC’s Washington headquarters, in December publicly called Mr. Ellison “clearly an anti-Semite.”
.. Mr. Perez’s association with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton was a liability for him with liberals and new voters brought to the party by Mr. Sanders’s presidential campaign. These voters are looking for a revamp of a party structure they see as too beholden to corporate interests.
.. Mr. Perez adopted much of the rhetoric of the Sanders movement and other critics of the Obama-era DNC, calling for a return to an emphasis on grass roots organizing, and a 50-state strategy that does more to channel money to state parties. Behind the scenes, though, Mr. Perez drew on the strength of the Obama network. He was endorsed by former Vice President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Eric Holder. Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett made phone calls to wavering DNC members.