Obama’s Labor Nominee Faces G.O.P. Critics in Senate

WASHINGTON — Responding to sharp criticism from Republicans for his work on housing discrimination and voting rights at the Justice Department, Thomas E. Perez, President Obama’s choice to head the Labor Department, on Thursday defended his record and said that if confirmed, his focus would be on tackling the nation’s high unemployment rate.

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the labor committee, cited a scathing report from other Republican lawmakers as he questioned Mr. Perez about a deal he helped broker with officials in St. Paul for the city to drop a housing discrimination lawsuit in exchange for the Justice Department’s declining to join two whistle-blower complaints against the city.

“That seems to me to be an extraordinary amount of wheeling and dealing outside the normal responsibilities of the assistant attorney general for civil rights,” Mr. Alexander said.

He later added that he expected Mr. Perez to respond in full to a subpoena from Representative Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, for personal e-mails believed to contain more information about the deal.

Mr. Perez countered that not only had he sought the guidance of ethics experts on the agreement, his had not been the final word.

“The senior career people in the civil division kicked the tires on this case. They looked at it very carefully, they made a very considered judgment that it was a weak case,” he said.

Democrats were eager to voice their support for Mr. Perez, who, if confirmed would be the only Hispanic member of the cabinet.

Anticipating questions about the deal, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the committee chairman, opened the questioning by leading Mr. Perez through a series of largely yes-or-no queries designed to rebut the Republican report.

“As I said, we have gone through this with a fine-tooth comb, with our lawyers, with our staff,” Mr. Harkin said. “And everything I can see is that you acted appropriately and ethically to advance the interests of the United States.”

Questioning the role of politics in Mr. Perez’s challenges to voting laws, Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, brought up the Justice Department’s move to block that state’s voter identification law in 2011 on the grounds that it would discourage minority voters.

“As I look at your management style, it seems to have a political perspective, a political bias in the management style,” Mr. Scott said. “It seems not to be open and not to be balanced and certainly not to be fair.”

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, released a statement in March vowing to block Mr. Perez’s nomination pending a response from the Justice Department on his accusations of uneven enforcement of voter registration rights in his state.

As expected, many of the questions focused on job creation, with senators from both parties asking about his commitment to the Job Corps, a training program for young people, among others.

“Jobs, jobs, and jobs,” Mr. Perez said, summing up his top priority as labor secretary. “I believe it’s critically important to get Americans back to work, and I believe the Department of Labor can play a critical role.”

The committee plans to take up the nomination again next week.

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New Labor Effort Looks to Counter Republican Groups

The 2012 general election campaign — just days old — is already shaping up as a contest about which candidate can better identify with the plight of working-class Americans struggling to make ends meet.

On Thursday, President Obama’s allies in organized labor are to announce an Internet-based effort to rally workers to the president’s corner using what they say will be the latest social media tools.

In an event at the Washington headquarters of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., organizers are scheduled to unveil a new Web site, workersvoice.org, along with ambitious plans to energize union and nonunion workers to participate in the presidential and Congressional elections.

“The labor movement is the original social network,” said Eddie Vale, the communications director for the new group. “Workers’ Voice will be revolutionizing it for today’s world by taking our traditional field and organizing knowledge and applying it to the digital era and making it available to all workers.”

In the last six months, Mr. Obama has increasingly focused his campaign for re-election on a populist argument that the policies of the Republicans would benefit the wealthiest in the country, leaving most workers behind.

This week, Mr. Obama is pushing Congress to pass what Democrats call the “Buffett Rule,” which would require anyone making over $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent in taxes.

“Tell them to stop giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans who don’t need them and aren’t asking for them,” Mr. Obama said during an event on Wednesday. “Tell them to start asking everybody to do their fair share and play by the same rules.”

The new labor group describes itself as a counter to those allied behind Mitt Romney, Mr. Obama’s likely opponent in the fall. They include American Crossroads and other “super PACs” that have pledged to support Mr. Romney with advertising and voter mobilization efforts.

In fact, Mr. Romney has made clear in recent weeks that he intends to prosecute the same populist case against Mr. Obama, describing the sitting president as out of touch with the plight of everyday Americans and unable to develop solutions that will help them weather the economic turmoil.

“Years of flying around on Air Force One, surrounded by an adoring staff of true believers telling you what a great job you are doing, well, that might be enough to make you a little out of touch,” Mr. Romney said earlier this month.

American Crossroads — which was founded by Karl Rove, the former top political aide to President George W. Bush, and Ed Gillespie, who recently signed on with Romney campaign — and other independent groups are likely to seize on that theme in the coming weeks. The new union-led group is hoping to counter that message, though it’s unclear how much money the group will have at its disposal.

“Workers’ Voice is going to be a counterpart to Willard Romney’s and Karl Rove’s groups that accept millions in corporate and 1 percent money,” Mr. Vale said. “But unlike them we are not going to focus on negative TV ads.”

Instead, Mr. Vale said, the group will focus on “activating and empowering networks of working families to counter their attacks.”

Labor unions have long been allies of Democratic presidential candidates, especially when it comes to get-out-the-vote efforts that can make the difference in close elections. It’s not clear what the relationship is between the unions and the new group.

Conservatives contend the influence of the labor unions is a vastly underreported asset for Democratic candidates.

The Web site for the new group says it will be dedicated to “connecting and empowering working families to make a difference in political and legislative campaigns.”

“As mega millionaires like Willard Romney, the Koch Brothers and large corporations try and buy our political and legislative process Workers’ Voice will activate and energize networks of working families,” the site says, using “cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned energy.”

Specifically, Mr. Vale said the group plans to use new social media tools to enhance door-to-door canvassing and phone banks in ways that have not been tried on a large scale by such groups in the past.

A successful effort by the group could help the president deflect attacks by the Republican super PACs and allow Mr. Obama’s campaign to remain on the offensive in describing Mr. Romney as the one who does not understand working Americans.

But so far, Democratic groups backing Mr. Obama have had far less luck raising money to support their efforts than their Republican counterparts. The Web site of the new group asks for donations from $5 to $500 or more.

“Your contribution today will help create the foundation for the work we need to do to win the political and legislative fights important to working families,” the site says.

Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.

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