WASHINGTON — With a few confirmation victories in his pocket, President Obama decided Monday to press ahead with another cabinet nominee in defiance of Republican opposition as he tapped an assertive civil rights regulator to be his next labor secretary.
Mr. Obama's nomination of Thomas E. Perez, who has racked up record discrimination and housing claims as head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, generated criticism from some Senate Republicans who called him a divisive and political choice. But after pushing through other disputed nominees, most notably Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, Mr. Obama calculated he could win another fight.
It might even be a fight that he wants to have. Mr. Perez has been aggressive in pursuing cases in areas that have been priorities for the president, particularly voting rights and discrimination against Hispanics. Mr. Obama brushed aside a critical report about political divisions in a section under Mr. Perez to advance a candidate who drew praise from liberals and labor leaders and would be the only Hispanic in the cabinet.
In a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Monday, Mr. Obama presented Mr. Perez as an immigration success story. "Like so many Americans, Tom knows what it's like to climb the ladder of opportunity," Mr. Obama said. "He's the son of Dominican immigrants. He helped pay his way through college as a garbage collector and working at a warehouse. He went on to become the first lawyer in his family."
The president added, "So his story reminds us of this country's promise that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is, you can make it if you try."
Republicans criticized Mr. Perez as a radical legal activist who has presided over a politically charged Justice Department division and has tried to help illegal immigrants avoid detection and receive public benefits.
"This is an unfortunate and needlessly divisive nomination," said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. "Mr. Perez has aggressively sought ways to allow the hiring of more illegal workers. Mr. Perez has also had a controversial tenure at the Department of Justice, where he has demonstrated a fundamentally political approach to the law."
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the nominee should face "a lot of tough questions" about whether he acted inappropriately in persuading the City of St. Paul to drop a lawsuit seeking to limit fair housing claims when there is no intentional bias.
Mr. Grassley chided Mr. Obama for seeking out controversy. "Nominating somebody who is in the middle of a Congressional investigation shows me that the president isn't very serious about working together," he said.
Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the committee that will consider Mr. Perez's nomination, was more cautious, saying he looked forward to meeting the nominee. And Republicans who have worked with Mr. Perez praised him.
John Dunne, a Republican who headed the Civil Rights Division under President George Bush, hired Mr. Perez in 1990 and called him "a top-notch lawyer" and "a very straight, honorable person." He added: "He's the kind of guy I'd put my life into his hands."
Michael Steele, a former Republican National Committee chairman who knows Mr. Perez from Maryland politics, said labor would have a friend. "Do we disagree on a few philosophical things? Yeah, we do," Mr. Steele said. "But he has always been a guy who tries to find the common ground to stand on in serving the people."
The president's announcement came just days after a Justice Department inspector general's report found that the voting rights section has been torn by "deep ideological polarization" with liberal and conservative factions in sharp conflict. The divisions date back to the George W. Bush administration, and most occurred before Mr. Perez was confirmed in October 2009.
Mr. Perez asserted that his tenure at the voting rights section was largely cleared by the report. "Since 2009, the Civil Rights Division and the Voting Section have undertaken a number of steps to improve the professionalism of our workplace and to ensure that we enforce the civil rights laws in an independent, evenhanded fashion," he wrote.
The inspector general, however, questioned Mr. Perez's testimony about a case that preceded his time. Mr. Perez told the Civil Rights Commission that no senior department officials were involved in a 2009 decision not to further pursue a case of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panthers. But the report noted that senior officials participated in discussions, although the final decision was made by career lawyers, as Mr. Perez had testified.
Mr. Perez, 51, the first lawyer in his family, graduated from Harvard Law School. He served as an elected council member in Montgomery County, Md., and as the state's secretary of labor, licensing and regulation.
At the Civil Rights Division, he has pursued a record number of discrimination or brutality claims against local police and sheriff's departments, challenged voter identification requirements in South Carolina and Texas, reached the three largest residential fair-lending settlements in history and presided over more new voting rights litigation than in any previous year.
"My parents taught my four siblings and me to work hard, to give back to our community and to make sure that the ladder of opportunity was there for those coming after us," he said Monday, addressing the White House audience in English and Spanish. "Over my career, I've learned that true progress is possible if you keep an open mind, listen to all sides and focus on results."
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