National Review Online
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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Re: MALDEF Won't Be Running Civil Rights After All [Ed Whelan]

Mark K.: I’ve been reliably informed that President Obama’s decision to abandon his commitment to nominate former MALDEF attorney Thomas Saenz to head the Civil Rights Division at DOJ and to instead nominate Maryland labor secretary Thomas Perez had nothing to do with Saenz’s record on immigration issues. What happened instead was that the leaders of the inside-the-Beltway civil rights establishment were livid that the White House had failed to consult them and had selected in Saenz someone they didn’t know and trust. So they pressured the White House, and the White House caved. Perez is well known to civil rights folks in D.C., as he served in the Clinton administration as a deputy in the Civil Rights Division and as director of HHS’s office of civil rights and also worked as a Senate staffer for Teddy Kennedy.

03/21 10:56 AM

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? ... I4MWJhYTk=

**note, Perez was also the "former president of the board of Casa de Maryland, the state's premier pro-illegal-immigration advocacy group" so he likely will be no better on illegal immigration than Saenz.