Tom Perez

His mother, Grace, came to the United States in 1930 after her father, Rafael Brache, was appointed as the Dominican Republic's Ambassador to the United States.

Brache was initially an ally of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, but after disagreements with the regime, he was declared an enemy of the state, forcing him and his family to remain in the United States.

Perez is the youngest of five brothers and sisters, all of whom but Perez followed their father in becoming physicians.

His father died of a heart attack when Perez was 12 years old.

He attended Christ the King in Amherst, New York until the 8th Grade.

Thomas Edward Perez (born October 7, 1961) is an American politician and attorney currently serving as senior advisor to the president of the United States and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, holding both positions since June 2023.

Perez graduated from Canisius High School, an all boys Jesuit school in Buffalo, in 1979.

Perez received his Bachelor of Arts in international relations and political science from Brown University in 1983.

He joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity there.

He covered the cost of attending Brown with scholarships and Pell Grants and by working as a trash collector and in a warehouse.

He worked in Brown's dining hall and for the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.

In 1986, while a student at Harvard, Perez worked as a law clerk for Attorney General Edwin Meese.

In 1987, Perez received a Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard Law School and a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

After graduating from Harvard, Perez worked as a law clerk for Judge Zita Weinshienk of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado from 1987 to 1989.

From 1989 to 1995, he worked as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

He later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Attorney General Janet Reno.

Perez chaired the interagency Worker Exploitation Task Force, which oversaw a variety of initiatives designed to protect workers.

From 1995 to 1998, Perez worked as Democratic Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's principal adviser on civil rights, criminal justice, and constitutional issues.

During the final two years of the second Clinton administration, he worked as the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

From 2001 to 2007, Perez was a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, where he taught in the clinical law and the law and health program.

He was a part-time member of the faculty at the George Washington University School of Public Health.

Perez was elected to the Montgomery County (Maryland) Council in 2002, serving as the council's president from 2005 until the end of his tenure in 2006.

He attempted to run for the Democratic nomination for attorney general of Maryland, but was disqualified for having insufficient time as a member of the Maryland state bar.

In 2002, Perez ran for the county council of Montgomery County, Maryland from its 5th District, which covers Silver Spring, Kensington, Takoma Park, and Wheaton.

His main challenge was the Democratic primary, where he faced Sally Sternbach, the head of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board and the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce.

In January 2007.

Perez was appointed by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley as secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

In October 2009, Perez was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate as assistant attorney general.

Perez previously served as the United States secretary of labor (2013–2017), the chair of the Democratic National Committee (2017–2021), and United States assistant attorney general for civil rights (2009–2013).

Born in Buffalo, New York, Perez is a graduate of Brown University, Harvard Law School, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

After clerking for Judge Zita Weinshienk in Colorado, Perez served as a federal civil rights prosecutor for the Department of Justice, a staffer for Senator Ted Kennedy, and, in the final years of the Clinton administration, as the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2013, Perez was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate to be the United States Secretary of labor.

After the 2016 elections, Perez announced his candidacy for chair of the Democratic National Committee in the 2017 party election.

After a tight race against Keith Ellison, Perez was elected chairman on the second ballot; he appointed Ellison as deputy chair.

Perez declined to run for re-election as chair in 2021.

Perez was a GU Politics Fellow at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service in 2021.

Perez then ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election, but lost to Baltimore author Wes Moore in the Democratic primary.

He joined the Biden administration in June 2023.

Thomas Edward Perez was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, to parents Grace (née Altagracia Brache Bernard) and Dr. Rafael Antonio de Jesús Pérez Lara, who had immigrated from Dominican Republic.

His father, who earned U.S. citizenship after enlisting in the U.S. Army after World War II, worked as a doctor in Atlanta, Georgia, before moving to Buffalo, where he worked as a physician at a Veterans Affairs hospital.