Heidi M Przybyla

USA TODAY

With an endorsement from former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, Tom Perez hopes to distinguish himself on voting rights and redistricting — issues of critical importance inside the Democratic Party — as the race for the next party chairman heats up.

Holder, who along with former president Barack Obama is heading a new redistricting reform effort aimed at pumping resources into critical gubernatorial and state legislative races over the next four years, will announce on Tuesday his support for the former U.S. Labor secretary.

“Tom not only knows how to take on big fights; he wins them,” Holder said in a statement. He cited Perez’s having sued former Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio for racial profiling, stopping voter ID laws that Democrats say disenfranchise minorities, and confronting Wall Street in the subprime home foreclosure crisis.

“Eric understands that Republican threats to our nation's voting rights and civil rights are far from over, and that's why he's taking on task of holding states accountable for discriminatory redistricting plans in order to ensure that all voters can exercise their basic right to vote free from discrimination," Perez said. "He understands more than anyone that we need a fully funded and fully staffed voter empowerment office at the DNC so that we are responding in real time to the games that Republicans will try to play with our democracy.”

The endorsement comes as the race for the next Democratic National Committee chairman is intensifying, with members preparing for a Feb. 25 vote in Atlanta.

The two strongest competitors appear to be Perez and Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who has raked in a number of major endorsements, most recently from the Teamsters Union and former vice president Walter Mondale.

Since the two hold similar progressive ideologies, each is looking for a way to stand out, with Ellison emphasizing his strength among the grass roots and experience as a former community and labor organizer.

Perez wants to underscore his résumé and, in particular, his executive experience to lead the party at a critical moment. Many Democrats say the party infrastructure and messaging strategy to middle-America is in need of a top-to-bottom rebuilding after the party has lost almost 50% of the statehouses they control across the country since 2009.

Holder’s endorsement also furthers a narrative about the DNC race as a proxy battle between Obama’s supporters and those of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the 2016 presidential candidate who backs Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. Last week, former vice president Joe Biden announced his support for Perez. Yet in a sign of the new power progressives wield in the party after the 2016 election, Ellison has also gained the support of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

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The race also includes New Hampshire Democratic Chairman Raymond Buckley; South Carolina Democratic Chairman Jaime Harrison; Sally Boynton Brown, executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party; Peter Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind.; and former Fox News commentator Jehmu Greene.

Holder will play a key role in fighting new voting laws expected to be introduced by Republican-dominated legislatures that could suppress the votes of minorities, who tend to vote Democratic, including early voting cutbacks, voter registration restrictions and strict photo ID laws.

There’s been a “broader movement to curtail voting rights, which began after the 2010 election, when state lawmakers nationwide started introducing hundreds of harsh measures to make it harder to vote,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan public policy and law institute.

In a sign of the importance of the voting rights issue, both Ellison and Perez have released plans that include a separate department within the DNC that focuses on expanded ballot access, increasing voter registration, and challenging new voting laws at the state level.

President Trump continues to promise, as recently as this weekend in an interview with Fox News, to create a commission led by Vice President Pence to investigate “voter fraud” that many Democrats fear will be a spearhead for a wave of new voting laws.

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