When Tom Perez (just elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee) was Maryland’s Secretary of Labor, Licensing and Regulation and wanted Barack Obama’s nomination to become U.S. Secretary of Labor he won the backing from the state’s business lobby.
Maryland’s Chamber of Commerce endorsed Perez in a letter sung Perez’s praises and pushed Obama to nominate him.
It turns out that letter was ghost-written by Perez’s deputy, as the Washington Examiner‘s Sean Higgins reported at the time.
The person who actually wrote the chamber’s Perez endorsement was Scott Jensen, the department’s deputy secretary. Jensen is a close ally of Perez. Jensen was a special assistant to Perez during the latter’s tenure as DLLR secretary.
Maryland Chamber President and CEO Kathleen Snyder made only two minor changes to Jensen’s draft endorsement letter, including correcting Jensen’s misspelling of her name before publishing it with her signature.
Perez, in an email obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, applauded his deputy for doing this: “You are a star! Thx so much. I had written this off. I will absolutely call her.”
So here you have a top regulator of business using his office to lean on the business community to support his boss’s promotion. Jensen was very grateful, writing back, “I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much.”
Will Perez’s DNC also seek such symbiotic relationships between the regulated and the regulator?
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s commentary editor, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
