Path to Power
Perez grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., where his parents settled after leaving the Dominican Republic. His father, a doctor, served in the Army and then worked in a Veterans Administration hospital. He died when Perez was 12. Perez’s mother ran the household until her husband died, when she earned a degree in English literature from the University of Buffalo. “The United States gave them opportunities even though this was their adopted homeland,” Perez told The Washington Post. “They would tell me how much they loved this country and how it was important for me to be involved.”
Perez went to Brown University, where he studied international relations and political science. He then attended Harvard University, where he earned a J.D. from the law school and a public-policy degree from the Kennedy School of Government. After graduating, he clerked for Judge Zita L. Weinshienk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
After a year of clerking, Perez took a job as a prosecutor with the Civil Rights Division of the Clinton Justice Department. He began in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., prosecuting misdemeanors. In 1994, he was promoted to deputy chief of the Civil Rights Division’s criminal section, a position he held for a year. From 1995 to 1998, Perez was detailed from the DOJ to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) Senate Judiciary Committee office, where he served as special counsel while earning his salary from the Justice Department.
From 1998 to 1999, Perez spent one year as deputy assistant general for the Civil Rights Division. He left to assume charge of the Office of Civil Rights at Clinton’s Department of Health and Human Services. Perez described his work with HHS as overseeing “the enforcement of federal civil rights laws in the health and human services context.”
Shortly after President George W. Bush took office, Perez left the federal government and worked as a part-time consultant for the next six years. He also began teaching at the University of Maryland School of Law. At Maryland, he taught a variety of courses from criminal defense to criminal justice to civil rights. He also ran clinics in which law students worked in the field under Perez on real cases defending low-income residents on civil rights, criminal and employment issues. During that time, Perez also served on the board of Casa de Maryland, a group that advocates for the Latino community in Maryland.
In 2002, Perez decided to run for a seat on the Montgomery County Council as a representative from District Five, a majority-minority district that borders Washington D.C. He beat out four opponents to win the Democratic primary and then easily won the general election.
In 2005, Perez served as president of the county council, but decided not to seek re-election in 2006. After his term was up, he was appointed by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D) as secretary for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which enforces labor laws, administers unemployment and regulates financial institution. His role was mostly managerial and he did not litigate cases himself.
Perez, who had worked on O’Malley’s 2006 campaign, worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and later served on the transition team after Obama’s victory. In 2009, Obama tapped Perez to lead the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, a position that has historically generated intense controversy. Some Los Angeles Latino groups were initially angry that Obama didn’t nominate Thomas Saenz, an adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), to the post.
.jpg?size=thumb)
