Labor Secretary Tom Perez plans on entering the race for Democratic National Committee chair, buoyed by support from senior Obama administration officials.
Perez plans on announcing his candidacy for the DNC chair this week, according to both The New York Times and The Huffington Post.
“A source close to Perez, who said he will have an announcement later this week, said he’s talking to elected officials and party leaders to gauge their support,” The Huffington Post noted on Tuesday morning.
The move would pit a handpicked establishment choice against Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), in the contest to lead the Democratic Party into the 2018 midterm.
Ellison, one of the first legislators to support Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 presidential primary, has already received endorsements from a range of establishment figures–including support from incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a staunch backer of Hillary Clinton in the party’s presidential contest.
Ellison is also backed by the left-wing of the Democratic Party. Sens. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) vociferously support his bid to become DNC chair. Labor appears firmly in Ellison’s corner too, with the AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and leaders from other major unions touting his candidacy.
Perez, meanwhile, appears to have been goaded by the White House to challenge the Minnesota Congressman.
“He has been wooed by prominent Democrats for weeks to seek the party post,” the Times noted, “a lobbying campaign that included entreaties from high-level allies of Mr. Obama.” The Huffington Post named these officials as: Vice President Joe Biden, White House advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Simas, and former Obama aide David Axelrod.
Axelrod, The Huffington Post said: “has talked up a Perez candidacy with The New York Times, and first floated the idea on Twitter that Ellison wouldn’t have time to serve as DNC chairman because he is also a congressman.”
Last week, Ellison said he would resign his Congressional seat, if elected as DNC chair.
Perez does have progressive credentials to burnish. As Labor Secretary, Perez sought to alter rules to make millions of salaried workers eligible for overtime. Perez has also served under President Obama as head of the Justice Department Civil Rights Division head.
Perez, however, was also a firm backer of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and part of an Obama administration team that lobbied Democrats and labor unions on behalf of the deal.
His Labor Department also came under fire for lax enforcement of rules on unpaid internships–specifically, when it was okay for profit-seeking firms to employ unpaid interns.
The department issued new rules in April 2010, but in the first three years after, ProPublica noted, Labor “says it cited just 11 for-profit companies for failing to pay interns minimum wage.” In its investigation, ProPublica said there are between 500,000 and 1 million unpaid interns in the US, on a yearly basis.
While Perez only became Labor Secretary in 2013, he defended the lack of enforcement actions on those who misclassify employees as interns.
“[I]f your focus is entirely on strategies to use enforcement to make sure that you get people into the workforce to make money, I think at best we’ll see fleeting progress,” he said in 2014.
Perez also lacks the same sort of experience in electoral politics that Ellison has, as The New York Times noted, “having served just four years on the Montgomery County Council in Maryland.”
Ellison, meanwhile, is something of a electoral trailblazer, as the first Muslim elected to Congress, and he has emphasized grassroots outreach, throughout his career.
“His organizing credibility stems from years working as a pro bono lawyer for low-income people and from his willingness–rare among Beltway elected officials–to join political protests, including striking workers,” The Huffington Post said.
The publication noted that Ellison tends to elicit high rates of turnout in his district, which he typically wins “by at least 40 points.”
