WASHINGTON Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez on Monday defended departing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. while avoiding speculation on whether he might become Holders successor.
After a long speech at the National Press Club in which Perez a Snyder native renewed the Obama administrations call for a higher minimum wage and other policies to share the nations wealth, Perez declined to dive deep into questions about the possibility that President Obama soon might nominate him to run the Justice Department.
But Perez cited by many Washington sources as one of the three central contenders for attorney general was happy to speak up for Holder.
Eric Holder stood up for voting rights. Eric Holder stood up for common-sense criminal-justice reform. Eric Holder ended up working on the crack/powder disparity in a bipartisan way with members of Congress, Perez said, referring to the disparity in federal prison sentences for crack and powder cocaine violations. These are many of the defining issues of our day, and whenever youre going to work on some of these defining issues of our day, you will have folks who oppose you.
While defending Holders record, though, Perez assistant attorney general for civil rights until taking the helm at the Labor Department last year declined to answer questions about the Justice Departments future priorities.
I have not studied that issue since I was at the Department of Labor, he said. I can tell you the Department of Labors priorities should be putting people back to work, continuing the pace of growth, making sure we have spared prosperity.
Shared prosperity proved to be the theme of Perezs speech at the Press Club.
Were on pace for 2014 to be the best year for private-sector job growth in 16 years, Perez said. But the difference between then and now is that the rising tide of the late 1990s lifted more boats the yachts and the rafts; the cruise liners and the dinghies.
But not now, which is why Perez added: The principal unfinished business of this recovery is to ensure that prosperity is broadly shared, and that we build an economy that works for everyone.
Perez then outlined a stairway to shared prosperity that began with the understanding that in the past, it has been a bipartisan priority. Noting that Republican President Theodore Roosevelt pushed shared prosperity more than a century ago, Perez said: Shared prosperity is not a fringe concept cooked up by socialists.
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Perez pushes shared prosperity while avoiding speculation on post of attorney general