The Governor of Maryland nominated a successor to a state official whose appointment to the Justice Department Civil Rights Division remains stalled in the Senate, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

Tom Perez (maryland.gov)

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) tapped Alex Sanchez, a senior vice president at United Way of America, to replace DOJ nominee Thomas Perez as the secretary of labor, licensing and regulation. President Obama nominated Perez on March 31 to lead the Civil Rights Division.

Senate leaders have yet to schedule a vote on the Perez nomination. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told Main Justice last week that he has put a hold on the nominee. The Senate Judiciary Committee member said he has questions for the Justice Department that have not been answered yet.

Coburn said in June that Perez, former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has supported providing translators to illegal immigrants who are receiving medical care. The Oklahoma senator, a medical doctor who operated on people without U.S. citizenship, said providing illegal immigrants with interpreters would “wreck health care.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) in June questioned Perez’s prior work on the board of CASA de Maryland, an influential immigrant advocacy group that has come under fire by anti-immigration groups.

Perez was reported out of committee June 4 by a 17-2 vote. Coburn and Sessions were the only senators to oppose the Civil Rights Division nominee in committee.

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has also asked Senate Republicans to hold up Perez until DOJ gives the House member more information about the dismissal of voter-intimidation charges against members of the militant New Black Panthers.

Attorney General Eric Holder in a New Mexico speech urged the Senate to move on his nominee to head the Civil Rights Division.

Tom Perez (maryland.gov)

The Senate Judiciary Committee sent Thomas Perez’s nomination to the full Senate on June 4. But he’s faced headwinds in Congress. Last month, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) urged Senate Republicans to put a hold on Perez’s nomination until the DOJ gives Congress more information about a voter-intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party. Delays on Perez’s confirmation are putting a wrench in Holder’s efforts to reshape the Civil Rights Division.

Holder told lawyers gathered for the Hispanic National Bar Association Annual Conference in Albuquerque, N.M. on Thursday that DOJ needs Perez and another nominee, Ignacia Moreno, in place as soon as possible. Moreno, President Obama’s choice to head the Environment and Natural Resources Division, will testify in a Sept. 9 confirmation hearing. Obama nominated her June 8. Both nominees are backed by the HNBA.

“The Justice Department and the nation will benefit from Tom’s and Ignacia’s leadership,” Holder said in prepared remarks. “The resolution of many of the problems our country faces will be hastened by their entry on duty at Justice.”

Perez is Maryland’s labor secretary and a former special counsel to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) Moreno served as a principal counsel and a special assistant in the DOJ’s environment division during the Clinton administration. She is currently a counsel at General Electric Co.

Three other Assistant Attorney General nominees are also awaiting action by the full Senate:  Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen, Tax Division nominee Mary L. Smith and Office of Legal Policy nominee Christopher Schroeder.

Johnsen was reported out of committee March 19. Smith was endorsed by the Senate panel June 11. Schroeder got the panel’s nod July 28.

The Department of Justice top leadership is joining Vice President Joe Biden in Philadelphia on Tuesday to hold another big press event announcing law enforcement stimulus grants, this time in the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Last month, the venue was Michigan. Read our previous report here.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli will represent the DOJ at the Philly news conference, where they will appear alongside embattled Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey. Polls show Corzine, who is running for reelection in November, trailing his Republican challenger, former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.

The Associated Press’s Devlin Barrett got the scoop on where the money will go in advance of the official annoucement. Barrett led with the news that New York, Seattle, Pittsburgh and Houston had been left out of the COPS program sweepstakes, in which the federal government picks up salary and benefits for local police for three years.

But we found it equally interesting that places like Mobile, Ala., and Salt Lake City, Utah, are getting COPS funds. Mobile is the home town of the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, while another Senate Judiciary Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch, is from near Salt Lake. Both Sessions and Hatch have announced they will oppose President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

According to The AP, around 1000 localities are getting COPS money to pay for 4,699 officers.

The roughly 1,000 places getting COPS aid also include: Mobile, Ala., Mesa, Ariz., Tulare County, Calif., Monroe County, Fla., the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Baltimore, Providence, R.I., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Huntington, W.Va

Under the COPS program, the federal government pays the officers’ salary and benefits for three years, after which the local government is responsible for the costs.

Also slated to appear at Tuesday’s press conference are Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter — Democrats all. The Philadelphia police commissioner, Charles Ramsey, who is a former District of Columbia police chief, will also be there.

The $787 billion stimulus package, known as the  American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, was signed into law in February. It contained $4 billion for the Department of Justice to distribute to local and tribal law enforcement and the COPS program.