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Maryland Now is a podcast that goes beyond the headlines to explore the forces shaping Maryland’s politics, policy, and public life. Hosted by Dori Henry, Josh Kurtz, and David Nitkin — three veteran journalists and public‑affairs leaders with more than 60 years of combined experience — the show brings depth, context, and historical perspective to the issues facing Maryland today.
Each episode blends reporting, interviews, and insider knowledge. You’ll hear directly from the people driving decisions in Annapolis and across the state: agency heads, lawmakers, advocates, strategists, and longtime policy experts. The hosts draw on their decades covering and working in Maryland government to connect past decisions to current debates — revealing how we got here, what’s been tried before, and what’s at stake now.
Season One follows the 2026 General Assembly session and election cycle, with deep dives into housing, energy, the state budget, public health, and more. The conversations are smart, candid, and grounded in real reporting — not hot takes.
If you want to understand Maryland — its politics, its communities, and its future — Maryland Now is for YOU
[00:00:00] Dori Henry: Welcome to Maryland Now, brought to you by Blended Public Affairs. I'm Dorie Henry
[00:00:04] Josh Kurtz: I'm Josh Kurtz
[00:00:06] David Nitkin: I'm David Nitkin
[00:00:07] Dori Henry: And today we have a very special guest joining us, my friend Tom Perez, former Biden administration official, former DNC chair, perhaps most importantly, former US Labor Secretary under Barack Obama, and of course for our listeners, former Maryland Labor Secretary, former Montgomery County councilman. I don't think there's anything you haven't done, Tom
[00:00:29] Tom Perez: most important thing I've done was a former basketball coach for 15 years for my three children.
[00:00:35] Dori Henry: That's right. And of course now Tom is a partner at Mayer Brown law firm, and we will talk a little bit more about the work he's doing there later in the episode.
[00:00:44] But we wanted to kick off this conversation, I think, Tom, talking a little bit about the midterms. Obviously you have spent some time in the national political infrastructure, and you've s- you've traveled the country and spoken to Democrats of all stripes. So Tom, we'd [00:01:00] love to have you start by talking a little bit about how you're feeling about the midterm elections
[00:01:04] Tom Perez: think Democrats are gonna take the House and perhaps the Senate. If you look at prediction markets right now the... The House it's about a 90% probability of the Democrats taking the House. And the thing that has been really remarkable is what's happening in the Senate.
[00:01:23] The, the thing for viewers to understand is that the most relevant data point historically that predicts performance, and this is true for Republican, Democrats, wh-whoever.
[00:01:34] We can go back 25 years, and presidential approval has been the most relevant and probative data point. For instance, when I was working in the Obama administration my former colleague and good friend, David Simas, who was the political director for the president, he said in early 2010, "This is like a slow-moving train that's about to run us over."
[00:01:57] And the reason was the Affordable Care [00:02:00] Act. Back then it wasn't popular. Death panels, the whole nine yards. And the-- President Obama's approval ratings were in the low 40s. And to quote him, "We got shellacked." now fast-forward to 2017 when I was at the DNC, and we started winning races in places that we had no business winning.
[00:02:05] We were winning special elections in Oklahoma and Iowa, places that were w- Donald Trump won those, by 20, 25 points, and we're winning these races. And his approval ratings were in the, the low 40s in 2018. And look what happened. We flipped 41 seats in the House. We flipped more governor seats than ever before. We flipped four or five chambers in, in state legislatures from Republican to Democrat. And now fast-forward today. Donald Trump would give anything to have the approval rating he had in 2018 [00:03:00] in the run-up, because he's in the low depending on what poll you look at He's uh, you know, 35% to 39%, and we are in play in places that, haven't been in play for a long time.
[00:03:13] I talk a lot about Iowa. I-- Rob Sand, I know him very well. He's the state auditor. Two-- He's been in that job two terms. He's a bow and arrow hunter. He is very active in his church. J-Josh, I saw you smiling when I said that. He, he-- you can do bow and arrow hunting in Polk County, which is Des Moines, and, and he bags a deer, with his bow and arrow in Polk County.
[00:03:38] That plays. And he's really talented. And then you look at Josh Turek and if your viewers haven't watched the video with Josh Turek and President Obama, Josh is the candidate for US Senate, and he has a real shot. Josh is a w- gold medalist and a Paralympian. He was born with spina bifida.
[00:03:59] [00:04:00] He's, what, by his own account, he's a prairie populist. And, in Iowa, the tariffs have been killer. If you look at exports from Brazil on soybeans to China, they've gone way up. And you look at exports from the US to China, they've gone way down. You look-- And then Trump adds insult to injury.
[00:04:20] He gives a deal to the Argentinians on beef so that we can have cheaper beef from Argentina. And, a-and then perhaps most importantly, Iowa skews older, and there's a lot of folks who have a lot of health problems, and they're taking it on the chin because of the-- I don't-- I'm not gonna call it that, b- that bill that they passed last year.
[00:04:41] It's, it was neither big or beautiful But it has
[00:04:44] David Nitkin: It was big.
[00:04:45] Tom Perez: it was not beautiful. Okay? and so many people have lost access to healthcare or are paying more. And so I use Iowa as just an example. Tom Harkin is one of my mentors in politics, and he, served there for 30 years.
[00:04:59] He's really [00:05:00] bullish on Iowa. Tom Vilsack was my cabinet colleague in the Obama administration really bullish on Iowa.
[00:05:06] We could win Kansas the Senate race. take a flyer on that. The, the candidate for Senate is remarkable. He is the pastor of the largest church in the state. He is talking about issues that transcend party. and I'll give you one example from the 2018 cycle that made me realize that we had to increase our risk tolerance threshold. I got a call back then in 2017 from Kathleen Sebelius, who was the former governor of Kansas and was a cabinet colleague of mine and a good friend to this day.
[00:05:40] And she said, "Tom- We can win Kansas in 2018. have a great candidate. Her name is Laura Kelly. And by the way, Tom, don't tell anyone, she's from Queens. But she's here in Kansas, and she's a great candidate. And my problem is, nobody believes me because it's Kansas, and we need an angel investor, and we need [00:06:00] you, the DNC, to do that.
[00:06:01] And I have a lot of faith in Kathleen. And so we invested, and then she can go to others and say, the DNC's investing. You gotta invest." fast-forward, Laura Kelly is about to complete her second term. And by the way, we have a chance to elect a Democrat again in Kansas. So what's the matter with Kansas?
[00:06:17] Not a damn thing. They're electing Democrats. Sharice Davids is one of my favorite people in the US House. Got elected in 2018. Native American mixed martial arts lesbian got elected in Kansas. Folks, like we did a lot back then, and Trump's numbers were in the low 40s. He's now in the mid-30s on a good day. And people have seen that the cruelty of this administration. People are feeling the impact at the pump. Farmers who depend on diesel gas are feeling it in a big way. I had lunch with Speaker Pelosi who will always be my speaker about a, oh, [00:07:00] I don't know, a month or so ago.
[00:07:01] And she's very bullish as well. And so I'm really thinking that we're gonna get 25 to 30 seats in the House. And then we need plus four in the Senate. I think we might need plus five because I don't know what John Fetterman's gonna do after the midterm election.
[00:07:17] And you all recall back in 2001, the the Democrats actually did a smart thing with Jim Jeffords when it was a similar situation in the House. And Jim Jeffords, he didn't become a Democrat, but he, b- he basically caucused with the Democrats to give them functional control of the Senate. So we need a plus five, but we've got some great candidates.
[00:07:36] And I haven't talked about Mary Peltola, who I adore. She's just fantastic. We've got a great candidate, obviously, in North Carolina. Sherrod Brown's g- was probably my closest friend in the Senate when I was labor secretary. And he told me back in 2020 four, during the most recent presidential.
[00:07:54] Tom, I can win Ohio as long as Trump doesn't win by double digits because I have [00:08:00] enough crossover appeal. Trump won Ohio by 13. Guess what? Sherrod lost by three. He knows his state. This time around, those Trump voters, th- they're sporadic voters, and when Trump's not on the ballot, they don't show up. And I think Sherrod's gonna win that race in Ohio. you know, when you look at this map, and obviously I've met James Talarico three or four times. He's spectacular. And I would be remiss, Dori, and I apologize for going on, but I really am genuinely optimistic.
[00:08:31] I'd be remiss, though, if I didn't talk about Gina Hinojosa.
[00:08:32] And for your viewers Gina's sister worked with Dori and me not only at the Justice Department, but at the Labor Department. And Gina, y- literally the last six or seven polls that have come out in Texas starting with Fox News, by the way. It's not like I'm not, I'm, I am not intoxicated right
[00:08:51] Josh Kurtz: They do good polls, actually. Yeah
[00:08:52] Tom Perez: But no, Fox News is, no, it's-- I, I agree. Their poll has it all. It's a one-point race. It's a margin of error race. And I [00:09:00] know the Hinojosa family very well. Her-- the dad was the party chair in Texas for a dozen years. And the thing about it is she grew up on the border.
[00:09:08] And this is the last thing I'll say about Texas because it's a bellwether for a number of other states. Barack Obama lost Texas in twenty twelve by sixteen. Hillary lost it by nine, nine and change. Joe Biden in twenty twenty lost Texas by five. That trend data was probably ninety to ninety-five percent Latino voters. And then Kamala lost it by thirteen, and that trend data was also Latino voters. He got something like forty-three percent of the Latino vote in Texas in twenty-four. And then you look at twenty-five in places like Virginia and New Jersey, and Latino voters came back in a big way, and in Texas as well.
[00:09:56] There was a special election in the state senate. And just for your viewers', [00:10:00] edification, a state senate seat in Texas is bigger than a congressional seat. So this isn't just-- this isn't Maryland where it's, know, Takoma Park and Silver Spring. I love Takoma Park. I live in Takoma Park, but like these are big districts. And the Democrat, it was a thirty-point swing in that district. This was months ago, not years ago. Texas is in play. How many times do we say that? And what
[00:10:26] David Nitkin: All the time
[00:10:27] Tom Perez: What she was telling me, my favorite part of it is there's this coal-- It's a small group. I don't wanna exaggerate it.
[00:10:34] It's a small group of folks who are Gina Hinojosa, Ken Paxton supporters. hate Abbott, and they are women who care about two things: schools- And data centers.
[00:10:46] Abbott has taken tens of millions of dollars from the data center world, and he hasn't done a darn thing-- I wanna make this a G-rated program.
[00:10:55] He hasn't done a darn thing with public education, and Gina [00:11:00] has. And I'm glad you started out with that question. Now, I am not irrationally exuberant.
[00:11:06] There is a lot of work to do because here are the two sources of concern. Number one is money. Abbott is sitting on more money than God.
[00:11:14] And, in Maryland, someone writes you a six thousand dollar check, you're forever grateful. In Texas, there's no limit, so they're writing six million dollar checks, quite literally. And and the disparity in both the House and Senate races are going to be enormous, and not just limited to there. And then obviously gerrymandering has made life a lot more challenging. But I'll say this about gerrymandering. There was a mid decade gerrymander in Texas back, I think it was in the '90s. And a lot of these Republicans who had, districts that were R plus fifteen, they said, "Ah, can do R plus eight, so that we can get more seats."
[00:11:50] And then they hit a wave election for the Democrats and there's a number of former Republicans from Texas because R plus eight wasn't enough in those wave years, and this may be one [00:12:00] of those wave years. If you're watching, out there. Travel to Texas, travel to Ohio, travel to Pennsylvania, travel to these places because I don't want to exude arrogance at the moment.
[00:12:11] I just think that this is a tailwind moment. It's a tailwind moment because so many people are suffering. And you watch Minneapolis, that's not who we are as a nation, what happened there. And I firmly believe that when historians look back at this cycle, they're gonna draw comparisons between this cycle and some of the cycles when, people were marching the Edmund Pettus Bridge and got billy clubbed by police.
[00:12:40] That was the first time people saw it on television. In Minneapolis, you may recall, that happened in late January, and there was a cold snap around the country. A lot of people were watching television back then because that was the only thing to do because it was thirty below in all sorts of places.
[00:12:58] And I really believe [00:13:00] that people have seen it with their eyes. They're feeling it at the pump every day. They have friends who have been deported. This is not who we are as a nation.
[00:13:11] Dori Henry: I thank you for that. I think do wonder how things like the, the ICE in- involved incidents and obviously the gas prices and so all these sort of, all these sort of snowballing factors that people realize that Trump meant what he said when he ran for office, and he did what he said he was going to, and they didn't realize how those actions would actually impact them personally, and now they're feeling it very very significantly.
[00:13:35] And so I think you're right. We're gonna see the results of that in November.
[00:13:40] What happens next? Because then, if the Democrats take one or
[00:13:42] both chambers of Congress what are the implications of that?
[00:13:45] Tom Perez: this may be counterintuitive for some of your listeners. Let me first say what I hope doesn't happen next. I hope that there's not all sorts of attention paid to trying to impeach the president. not gonna get removed and, and I may be a minority [00:14:00] viewpoint among folks, but you're asking me for for my honest belief.
[00:14:03] People are suffering right now. The president effectively campaigned on lowering the cost of gas, lowering the cost of groceries. And now he says affordability, quote, "Is a Democratic hoax." If you get your healthcare bill, that's not a hoax. That's a cruel bill. you go to the gas pump, that's not a hoax.
[00:14:22] It's a cruel bill. If you're a farmer used to export soybeans know, to China, and you're not doing it anymore, you're watching bankruptcies, you know, family farms that were fourth generation, they're not gonna see a fifth generation. And that's what we need to focus on. We need to make sure we're responsive, we're out there, and we are talking about the right issues right now: healthcare.
[00:14:45] And by the way, we haven't talked about the Social Security crisis. I used to be a, a trustee of the trust fund. That's six years away from insolvency. Six years in, actuarial terms is tomorrow. And so there's a lot [00:15:00] of important things, and I hope that becomes the focus.
[00:15:04] In addition, what will be the focus and what ought to be the focus is oversight. There, there have been, so many pay-to-play deals that have taken place. And I know there will end up being a lot of oversight, and that is appropriate because there hasn't been accountability for a lot of what is going on.
[00:15:25] And so you can expect that Robert Garcia is the chair of the Government Oversight Committee, or he will be in the House. Jamie Raskin will be the Chair of Judiciary. You can expect that they will be very active. And we at our law firm, I spend a lot of time explaining to clients what are the consequences of when the House flips, and you need to be ready to explain, the various situations.
[00:15:51] So I hope there's oversight. I hope there's not impeachment. And I hope we can raise the minimum wage. I hope we can address the immigration challenge, or at least demonstrate what [00:16:00] our values are in that context. I hope we can make sure that we're extending the healthcare subsidies. And the oversight is entirely not just appropriate, but it is necessary
[00:16:12] Josh Kurtz: How do you keep overexuberant Democrats from going down the impeachment path?
[00:16:17] Tom Perez: by showing history.
[00:16:18] the challenge we have right now as a nation and, and the reason one of the things that Democrats have to own up to is that know, non-college educated voters are Republicans more than Democrats now. And that's the reality. the most probative data point on, who you're gonna vote for is educational attainment. And I grew up in Buffalo, New York. My, my-- I was I was 12 when my dad died, and my surrogate father was a teamster. He had, I think, a 10th grade education.
[00:16:50] He was the wisest person I ever knew. I often wonder if there's an inverse correlation between the number of years of formal education and wisdom I had the privilege of going to some of these [00:17:00] highfalutin schools and some of the people there, they didn't have much common sense or horse sense, but my surrogate father did.
[00:17:07] And we've lost that voter. that's the reality right now. And here's another reality that is a harsh reality for Democrats to understand. We used to say we just-- the more people vote, the more Democrats win. That's just not accurate at the moment. Donald Trump's superpower was he turned out sporadic voters, and the reason why Sherrod Brown's gonna be a senator next year again in Ohio is because those voters who turned out last year aren't turning out this this cycle. The, the bigger issue for us as a nation is that the biggest bargain of America is that every generation is supposed to be a little better off than the preceding generation. That's not the lived experience so many people who identified as Democrats. And so then someone comes in and says it's-- don't worry, it's not your [00:18:00] fault.
[00:18:00] It was the immigrants' fault." And they're like, "Okay yeah. That's right." And they're susceptible to those messages. And this is responsive to your question. We have to talk to voters and understand that, yes, there is a pathway for you and we haven't talked about AI yet.
[00:18:16] But AI, is another disruptive force, potentially, in the same way that, you know, trade agreements and globalization and automation. There was a lot of promise around those things. But if you go to Buffalo, all you see is, the Trico plant, which ran three shifts, moved down to Mexico right after NAFTA.
[00:18:36] And the bar I used to play softball for, they had a great business model. They closed at 4:00 a.m., and then they reopened at 8:00 a.m. because they'd catch third shift coming off. And then the most important thing they did is they cashed your paycheck back in the day. Not a bad idea. Slambas is closed.
[00:18:51] That's where I played softball, still got my jersey from, years ago. Slambas is gone and so is the Trico plant.
[00:18:59] David Nitkin: Tom, before we get [00:19:00] to AI, You said you, you were risking irrational exuberance. I feel I'm risking irrational fear in what might happen in the midterm elections that, Congress did not pass the SAVE America Act, but this president seems to do what he wants regardless of what court decisions are.
[00:19:20] So he will order the Postal Service not to deliver mail-in ballots. He will try to deploy the National Guard in swing districts to intimidate people at the polls and stop vote counting at midnight. I have a fear that the things he says are true and that our free and fair elections are actually at risk in November.
[00:19:44] Could you speak to how we get over that problem or what the likelihood is of actually, not full and accurate vote counting in swing districts to allow the outcome that you were just foreshadowing?
[00:19:57] Tom Perez: I'm glad you brought that up, David, 'cause I [00:20:00] was g- I have a little list of things I wanted to mention, and that was the one thing that I hadn't gotten to. And, I talked about, y- no-- anyone who is giddy now, get rid of that because, we still have whatever, 53 days.
[00:20:14] And whenever this airs, it's gonna be less. And, that's a real issue. Article One, Section Four of the Constitution plainly says states administer elections. We've had a number of lawsuits. The issue of the Postal Service. They don't have a role. They should not have a role.
[00:20:32] But again, we're going back and forth. Look what happened in Missouri. You're less than two months before the election, and you were litigating what are the districts gonna look like? And sowing that confusion is a big part of the strategy of the other side. And I'm confident in the end we're gonna win these battles on vote by mail because the law...
[00:20:57] The law has been crystal clear in other areas, and [00:21:00] it still didn't work out. I don't wanna get unduly confident on that. B- but the most important thing people can do is just get out there and vote. And ignore-- you gotta put the noise aside. Now, there's gonna continue to be efforts.
[00:21:14] I... Again, when you look at these lawsuits, including a lawsuit that was filed in Maryland by my old division, the Civil Rights Division, they lost that suit. They wanted all this information. And states administer elections. States and local governments administer elections. And I think in the end of the day, again, the goal there is to sow confusion.
[00:21:36] And again, to point out the obvious, Donald Trump votes by mail. And yet he doesn't want others to vote by mail. And vote by mail... By the way, if you look at the historic data in Florida, vote by mail was really helpful to Republicans.
[00:21:52] So this notion that vote by mail is this Democratic conspiracy, the data belies this.
[00:21:59] [00:22:00] And I prosecuted a case in Texas when I led the Civil Rights Division, and Dori was in the division at the time. Texas had a voter ID law that they put in place, and they had two justifications for it. One was there's a lot of non-citizen voting, and two, there's a lot of people with criminal histories voting.
[00:22:16] The record evidence in that case, and record evidence is a fancy term for the evidence that everybody agreed, the facts that everyone agreed to- No dispute were the following.
[00:22:32] There was something like, over the period we looked at, there was something like six or seven million votes cast. There was one incident of non-citizen voting, and I think there was either zero or one incident of someone with a criminal record voting.
[00:22:41] To put it differently, you had a greater likelihood of being struck by lightning Texas than you had of meeting a non-citizen who voted or someone with a criminal record. And by the way, having worked on a lot of immigration issues, you know when someone finally has a green card and they're on the pathway to [00:23:00] citizenship, if the speed limit's 30, they're going 27.
[00:23:02] They're not going 31 because they understand the journey they've been on and this notion that there's all these non-citizens going in to vote, that really bespeaks the fact that you don't know immigrant communities in this country. But it's a great story to tell, and if you tell it often enough, people will start believing it.
[00:23:21] So David, your point is well taken. The lawyers will continue to these issues.
[00:23:27] I think we will win those issues, but I say I think we will because there are at least three votes on the Supreme Court that will do almost anything that the administration wants.
[00:23:38] David Nitkin: Yeah. So the fate of our free elections rest on, two Supreme Court justices, right? Like the chief justice and getting, one ally who may have been a Trump appointee. It's a scary situation, isn't it? It's not guaranteed
[00:23:51] Tom Perez: it shouldn't be-- this shouldn't be hard. So in that respect, it's scary. And it's, it is it's a whole conversation for some other day about, [00:24:00] Supreme Court reform. The, the historians will look back on this moment in time and compare this era with the era of the Gilded Age of the early 20th century.
[00:24:11] There's a famous Supreme Court decision out of New York State-- a case out of New York State where New York State tried to regulate hours in sweatshops and the Lochner case. And the court famously said, "No, you can't do that," because if they want to make someone work, 70 hours a week, they can do that.
[00:24:32] And that was a low moment for the Supreme Court. And anyone who studies that in law school, if you accuse someone of acting like the Lochner court, that's the worst insult you can lob at them. And this court I'd hate to be John Roberts' grandchildren because when they study him they're gonna be asking like, What was up there?"
[00:24:52] And I say that quite seriously. It's just... It is really troubling because these voting rights issues are not gray. Article One, Section [00:25:00] Four is very clear. And so David, you're right to bring it up.
[00:25:06] Here's the remedy. Get out there and vote. Vote early. Y- go... Y- we have early voting in Maryland.
[00:25:08] There's early voting in so many other states. You control your destiny. Don't be a procrastinator, okay? If you're gonna vote by mail, you get it 60 days before, put it in the mailbox tomorrow. There's your remedy. Don't wait until the last minute. Make sure you do that. And when you do that, y- you'll be in a better place.
[00:25:28] So we are not... this is not one of those throw up your hands, there's nothing we can do. There's a lot people can do. And I sense that there's a real determination out there among voters.
[00:25:39] And by the way, if you look at Missouri, and I'll end, I'll... This is the last thing I'll say about this. A number of Republican secretaries of state wrote a amicus letter to the Supreme Court saying, "Don't mess with vote-by-mail. It's too close to the election." These are Republican secretaries of [00:26:00] state. And what you'll see with election administrators, and, I did a lot of work in Arizona.
[00:26:04] Maricopa County is Metro Phoenix. Sixty-two percent of the vote in a statewide election in Arizona comes from one county, Maricopa County. And Republican and Democratic administrators there have been incredibly professional over many years. And and so l- that's a really important point to understand.
[00:26:25] The people in the front lines administering these elections overwhelmingly are incredibly professional. Are there a few outliers? Yes. But overwhelmingly, they are incredibly professional. And in Maricopa County when Trump and others said that, there had been hanky-panky, that was not the case, they were incredibly professional.
[00:26:48] And I was heartened to see that amicus letter in the Missouri matter from Republican secretaries of state
[00:26:55] Dori Henry: Tom, I'm glad you mentioned your time in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. I wanna shift a [00:27:00] little bit. We've talked on this podcast before about the sort of the Trump administration strategy of flooding the zone, and you have all this attention to obviously, and relevantly the war in Iran.
[00:27:11] There was the Epstein files. There's all the big national stories. There's obviously a lot of attention to the horse race of the midterms. You have whatever he's posted on Truth Social most recently getting coverage. But the sort of impacts that are happening across the government i- in, within the sort of core of people who make the government work, and I, of course, y- you worked in the Civil Rights Division for many years, both as a career prosecutor and as the leader of the, the division, so you've seen how made at the top can impact what's happening, to the line employees that work on the important things that, the federal government does. The Civil Rights Division enforces voting rights. It enforces immigrant rights. It's en- enforces disability rights and edu- education and and housing discrimination and all the, the laws that we think of as these sacred [00:28:00] civil rights laws, and we know the Trump administration has really decimated that and also weaponized it to carry out its agenda. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen there how the Trump administration has impacted it? We know that the head of the Civil Rights Division is taking election monitors and turning them on our own, United States elections. That has never been done before. And going after universities claiming that it's because of antisemitism.
[00:28:27] So what are we seeing both
[00:28:28] in terms of how they've impacted the ability of division to carry out the laws that
[00:28:32] it's, was intended
[00:28:34] to enforce, but also the way it has turned on the people that it is meant to protect?
[00:28:39] Tom Perez: It saddens me to no end. I let me take a step back for a moment. I started my career I did a clerkship after law school out in Colorado. I started my career as a career prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. I started, George Herbert Walker Bush was president.
[00:28:57] Actually, when I started as a summer clerk in law [00:29:00] school, I did a, a clerkship in the Civil Rights Division, Ronald Reagan was president. had hair. I had no replacement parts. And and the reason I bring this up is I think it frames this discussion. What has been so critical to our democracy is these two guardrails of laws and norms. The, you... thou shall not discriminate. Those are the laws. The norms the following, and the norms are as important as the laws. When I w- started, when I was a summer clerk, there was a guy there who led the Civil Rights Division named Brad Reynolds. And now a lot of folks who are, on the liberal side of the spectrum, disliked Brad Reynolds.
[00:29:42] They disagreed with a lot of what he did. But if you talk to career people in the Civil Rights Division, yeah, they had some real battles with him internally, but he was always willing to listen, and he didn't walk in and wholesale fire two-thirds of the division. He understood the norm [00:30:00] we have this career civil service and they are the institutional memory of the division and the department.
[00:30:07] I always used to say when I was... when I became a political appointee, I'm the summer help. You are here, throughout." it never dawned on a Brad Reynolds or John Dunn, who was the AAG when I entered the department, and by the way, who came back in 2009 when I got nominated to lead the department.
[00:30:26] He came back and testified on my behalf. He's a Republican. And that's what I mean when I mean norms. There were 400 people in the division when I led the division, 400 lawyers. I used to say we're the biggest law f- civil rights law firm in America. And there were lawyers at the end of the Biden administration in the division.
[00:30:45] There are roughly 100 there now, maybe 120. And to be honest with you, I hope it doesn't get much above 120 because anyone who would be hired is someone who is being hired to do things that [00:31:00] are really not about civil rights.
[00:31:04] And so we have seen, the, the-- on the law side, we've seen all these Supreme Court decisions.
[00:31:08] There was a decision in a, case called Humphreys Executor in the most recent term of the court, which basically, you know, th-there's this theory called the unitary executive theory, which basically says Donald Trump can do anything. So if you have a five-person EEOC or a five-person NLRB, he can fire them all, even though the statute said you've got to have certain balance in party affiliation.
[00:31:37] And those statutes were really well-founded. But the laws have been kinda decimated in no small measure. No, no more than the Voting Rights Act. My worst day in the Civil Rights Division was when the Shelby County decision came down in twenty thirteen, which basically eviscerated Section V of the Voting Rights Act, which was, along with Section II of the Voting Rights Act, the heart and soul [00:32:00] of the law.
[00:32:00] So Section V gets eviscerated in twenty and then more recently, Section II effectively gets eviscerated by the court. So we have these two guardrails that have now been eviscerated and, federal employment was never meant to be de facto at-will employment, and it's kinda become that. And that's the challenge we have moving forward in you know, in twenty twenty-nine when we have a new president. And by the way, if you read Project 2029, th-th-this is not an accident. There have been efforts for years to overturn the Humphreys Executor decision.
[00:32:39] There have been efforts, the, the, the civil service, those career people like I was, we were the deep state. And so this is-- th-- what's happening is not coincidental. And you gotta, on a certain, like Machiavellian level, you gotta tip your cap. When they were out of office, Project 2025 was carefully thought out and [00:33:00] they got to work
[00:33:01] Dori Henry: So I wanna talk a little bit, Tom, about some of the work you're doing now. We've seen the way the Civil Rights Division has gone after universities. There seems to be this agenda that the president has against, what you might call elite institutions in the country. I, I take it personally as a Jew that they have used antisemitism as the way in. It feels like they are weaponizing it for their own agenda, and I don't think it serves us well at all. But one of the cases that you are involved in, it involves Harvard which, you know, in a very high-profile way the administration has gone after.
[00:33:37] Can you talk a little bit about that?
[00:33:39] And I know there's been some recent news in that case, so where does that stand and how do you think it is gonna play out?
[00:33:45] Tom Perez: Yeah, we are one of a number of law firms, I wanna make sure I'm very clear about that, that is representing Harvard. And, I had the privilege of going there for four years. And it's another example of the guardrails just, [00:34:00] being obliterated. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says the following: any program that re- receives federal financial assistance, you can't discriminate on the basis of race, color et cetera, and religion also. And the remedy in a Title VI case is you lose your federal funding. That's kind of an atom bomb. And so there's a very carefully crafted set of rules that were enacted post-1964 to govern those cases. And I can count on one hand the number of times where funding had to get yanked.
[00:34:36] By the way, one time, you were there, was Joe Arpaio, the idiot sheriff in in Maricopa County. they did some bad things. We followed the process. We didn't send them a letter saying, "We're taking all your money back right now." went to court to get information, and we did it the right way. What this administration did was they yanked their funding and asked questions [00:35:00] later. And, And let me be clear, and Harvard has been clear about this they have work to do in ensuring that they have a campus culture that is inclusive of everyone.
[00:35:12] They've been very clear about that. The president commissioned a, a very comprehensive report. And the challenge in that case was, again, the administration goes in it's, yank funding now, ask questions later. And the court has been very clear.
[00:35:28] We won at the trial level. There is oral argument in October in at the appellate level. The challenge is it's very disruptive for universities. And, other universities, like Columbia, that ended up settling. And, I'm not involved in that matter, but I know that has generated a lot of concern among many people about that settlement.
[00:35:52] And the challenge right now is, the cases, the bread and butter cases that in the civil rights context that should be done are not [00:36:00] being done. The cases aren't being done, and in addition, turning the clock back. We're not moving the clock forward. And some of the issues they're picking are issues that are beyond baffling to me.
[00:36:14] And I'll just give you one example. The Americans with Disabilities Act In nineteen ninety-nine, the Supreme Court said that the unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination under the There were millions of people in this country with disabilities who had so much potential and, and we tend to focus too much on the first three letters of that word disability and not enough on the last seven or eight letters of that word. And there are so many states that have understood that people with disabilities can thrive in community-based settings with supports.
[00:36:51] And by the way, it's cheaper, not to mention more humane. The unemployment rate of people with disabilities is sixty, seventy percent. [00:37:00] And I can't tell you the number of people with disabilities who say, "I wanna work. I need some supports, but I can com- become, self-sufficient."
[00:37:07] And we took that case, and we went, and we negotiated consent decrees with states throughout my tenure. It's one of the things I'm most proud of. It ain't sexy, but it is indispensable. And these folks have come back and they're trying to undo all these settlements so that people will get warehoused.
[00:37:27] Now, the nursing home lobby will do great because, they'll get more people to put in institutions. But that's wrong, and I don't understand I understand why they're-- historically you go after race issues and that. I disagree with that fundamentally, but that's been part of the playbook for a long time with certain folks.
[00:37:48] I wax nostalgic regularly, and I say this seriously, for George W. Bush, he was on immigration when we needed his help in nineteen [00:38:00] ninety-six when immigration reform last passed. governor that was most helpful in the passage of comprehensive immigration reform was George W. Bush. And when he was president, they tried, compassionate conservatism.
[00:38:13] what it was. That is-- That term has been lost, and it is really unfortunate. And I just don't understand. People with disabilities who are thriving are now losing those supports in the community. So many other similar cases and, and the Harvard case, we'll keep litigating Harvard is not gonna bend to the will of this administration.
[00:38:36] We're gonna follow the law
[00:38:38] Dori Henry: Tom, one of the things I think about sometimes is the impact of the Trump administration on our relationships around the world. And we elected Donald Trump twice. The first time it could be seen as a blip, the second time it does seem like this is who we are, and I think countries that have historically been our allies also see that, and they [00:39:00] recognize that they maybe can't rely so much on the United States to be a steadfast ally all the time. Once Trump is no longer president, what do you think has to happen to repair our standing in the world and to... Or do you think there is any way to repair our standing in the world and to rebuild those alliances and friendships?
[00:39:22] Tom Perez: I think it's gonna be very difficult. I think Prime Minister Carney has been one of the most eloquent spokespeople, and he's been very clear that, to other industrialized democracies around the world we have to adjust to a new world order. Let, let's assume for the moment, for this conversation that a Democrat is elected president in 2029. And, we go and we have conversations with our, G7 partners. We, go up to Ottawa and have conversations with Carney and we say, "Hey, we're on a new pathway." the most common response is gonna be, " [00:40:00] heard that in 2021, and it turned out to be a temporary new pathway." So it's a fool you once, shame on you. Fool you twice, shame on me. mayor Brown is a global law firm, and I'm actually gonna be in London twice in the next months, and I have conversations with a lot of our clients who, want to understand. doing business here, and they're trying to understand the rules of the game. Like in local government, when I was in the Montgomery County Council development was the key issue. Josh can attest to that. And know what a developer wants? " I want a seat at the table when the rules are made. I don't expect you'll take everything I say, but I want an opportunity to be heard, and then I want certainty. Don't change the rules." By the way, that's what Canada wants. That's what our allies want. By the way, it's Lake Ontario, and it'll be Lake Ontario again in 2029. the Gulf of Mexico, and it'll be the Gulf of Mexico again in 2029. those are [00:41:00] metaphors for I think some really serious reckonings that are taking place because the next president, if it's a Democrat, will say a lot of what President Biden said. But our foreign allies it will be understandable that they will say, all due respect, Mr.
[00:41:17] President or Madam President, we've heard that." and yeah, There, there's a lot of residual concern about, you know, what, what is going to happen and that is... very real, and it has very real consequences for trade agreements. I monitor soybean exports. Call me a nerd but, when you get a reliable partner, you stay with that partner. And, we're not that reliable partner at the moment. And that's a real problem that has real consequences for not just farmers, look what's happening, y- the supply chain in the auto industry between the US and Canada. The part starts made in Ohio, goes over to Windsor, comes [00:42:00] back to Ohio, goes over to Michigan and look at that, know, if you're Andy Beshear right now, the governor of Kentucky, your bourbon that was going to Canada just got a lot more expensive
[00:42:10] Dori Henry: All right, so you mentioned Andy Beshear, so I'm gonna ask the next obvious question. Do you have any interest in gaming out the Democratic presidential primary?
[00:42:17] Tom Perez: I, I will say this, there are a lot of really good people doing great things around the country.
[00:42:23] And I've had the privilege in the Biden administration of working with a lot of governors. I had the privilege in the Biden administration and in the, at the DNC and at the Labor Department of working with a lot of House and Senate, House members and senators. There will be no shortage of really good candidates, and I just hope that people engaged, get engaged because this-- I, I'm-- This moment in time we can do so much better than this.
[00:42:47] It just, I-- I... Casa Maryland is like a mile from my house, and when I see what is taking placeI do this 25-mile bike loop that takes me along the [00:43:00] Anacostia River, and there's a number of parks there in Prince George's side. I go by Josh's. I go mile from Josh's house on this route. And the thing that saddens the most, me the most is a bunch of these parks, empty. They used to be full on a Saturday and a Sunday of Folks playing soccer, their kids are there. Their, spouses and siblings are there, and it's just a lot of fun. And they're not doing it, and I know why.
[00:43:27] You know why. It's just not who we are. America is great because America is good, and, I just I don't think that the meanness that we see is who we are. And I'm hopeful. And again, I know this is gonna sound weird, but I went to the inauguration in '21.
[00:43:43] It was the most surreal day of my life. It was two weeks after the insurrection.
[00:43:47] And the thing that was chicken soup for me Was I don't know if you recall, there was Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama at the, at Arlington afterward just standing there. They, they didn't have [00:44:00] talking points.
[00:44:00] They were just talking about the peaceful transfer of power, and it was a very brief moment of normalcy in an otherwise completely chaotic and abnormal moment. And I was still at the DNC, and I took the liberty of writing a, just a handwritten note to President Bush just saying, "Thanks for showing up." And he wrote me back I talked to his office.
[00:44:23] And, we've gotta figure out a way as a nation to get back to this notion. I have an ecumenical family. I'm the youngest of five. I got one brother who's a Trump person and, one brother who, voted for Evan McMullin 2016, Biden in 2020, 'cause he's an evangelical Catholic and, the choice issue is where we kind of part company.
[00:44:45] But, my Trump brother, if he needed a kidney, I'd be the first one to raise my hand. And, my growing up buddies from Buffalo, we get together once a year, and some of them are Republicans, some of them are Democrats, and none of that matters. And, we just we have to figure out a [00:45:00] way to, create common spaces because we don't learn what we have in common unless we create common spaces where we can interact and learn from each other, and that skill has been lost. I used to teach up at Brown and y- there were a lot of classes I taught where I w- I had to be the conservative voice because I knew there were conservative voices in that room, but I also knew that they were rel- reluctant to speak up, and we have to change that.
[00:45:26] Th- this hyperpolarization is just not who we are as a nation and I hope that we can get beyond it.
[00:45:34] And the thing that makes it hard gerrymandering and dark money. 'Cause gerrymandering if you are a Republican... This is a nonpartisan I'm about to make. if you have immigration reform or pick a controversial issue that needs to be addressed a- and let's pick immigration. you are a Republican or a Democrat and your goal is to get reelected- And this bill comes up, your number one [00:46:00] concern electorally, if you're a Democrat, is gonna be a challenge to your left, and your number one concern as a Republican is gonna be a challenge to your right. So the incentive structure right now in the House of Representatives is don't tackle any hard issue.
[00:46:15] We have to tackle Social Security reform, and the solutions are pretty straightforward, is you create a progressive system, if you're making $600,000 a year as opposed to $100,000 a year, pay a little more.
[00:46:31] And by the way, you're still gonna get your ROI from it. I've seen all the actuarial studies. still gonna get that return. But you know what? The, the politics of that, "I'm not gonna raise taxes" and until we do that, and until we start understanding that, we're just getting through 9/11, the 25th anniversary. A number of the people who cleaned up for weeks after 9/11 were undocumented immigrants. And guess what? They're sick, many of [00:47:00] them, because of what happened. And guess what? They're not able to get any help. That's wrong. That's flat wrong. But the will isn't there to fix that. And that's why I know there are compassionate conservatives out there, we've gotta create that space, and gerrymandering and dark money has brought our democracy to its knees, and we've gotta figure out a way around it, and the Supreme Court ain't helping because they are, they've now just allowed all the coordination between the both sides of the wall and that's just gonna exacerbate problems, and you're seeing it already in Texas. Look at the money that's flowing into that race. these are the things we need to do. I mean, I, I continue to be optimistic.
[00:47:42] We've been in a ditch before and we've been in a ditch many times. Geez.
[00:47:47] One of my clients is a guy named Leonard Peltier. And what people don't know about Leonard is when he was, like, 10 years old, he was abducted from his home along with his sister During [00:48:00] a 150-year practice by the United States of America of kidnapping young Native American kids and taking them to boarding schools, abusing them.
[00:48:12] Many of them died in those boarding schools. Many of them were sexually assaulted in those boarding schools for 150 years. And Joe Biden was the first president to formally apologize. I bring that up because we've been in a ditch oftentimes and, we have many examples of America at its best, but we have all too many examples of America at its worst.
[00:48:36] And we've got to summon our better angels, and that is what the task of the next nominee is going to be. And I think there's a real hunger And I joined Mayor Brown in no small measure because we're a bipartisan firm. The two people that were hired at the same time, myself and a guy, Ken Wainstein, who's a, a good friend now and a, and never He's a never Trump [00:49:00] Republican. I appreciate the firm hiring us because, other firms would, you know, as you know, they were a little reluctant to, um, risk things. And I want to spend the rest of my career trying to forge bipartisan solutions, whether it's through my day work at firm or whether it's, through other activity.
[00:49:18] And I hope we can do that. It sounds trite in this hyper-partisan world, but until we figure that out, we're just gonna continue to go back and forth and that's just not who we are. But I'll tell you, in the short run, I'm optimistic that we can get back on track. Not the first time we've been in a ditch, probably won't be the last time, but I think we're gonna climb out in this November as long as people continue to engage.
[00:49:41] Don't take... Stay off the polar coasters, get out there and participate. That's what it's all about.
[00:49:48] Dori Henry: That's right everybody remember to vote. Tom says vote this November.
[00:49:51] Thanks for listening to this episode of Maryland Now. Thanks to Nate Carper from Carper Creative for his technical support. If you have ideas or comments [00:50:00] or questions, contact us at marylandnow@blendedpublicaffairs.com. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.