Tom Perez

I had the luxury of skipping the cabinet meeting to attend my daughter's graduation. So many people don't have the luxury of taking an hour away from the workplace to attend indispensable family commitments. We have to change that dynamic.

With patience, persistence, and partnership, we can create economic opportunity for every person willing to work hard for it.

Smart growth is having the courage to say yes and having the courage to say no.

There's this notion out there - and it's a categorically false notion - that the only business model in the service industry is the minimum-wage business model. I say phooey to that. You go to a Costco store, and you see people there who've been working there for years and years. They're making $15, $20 an hour, plus health benefits.

I've talked to several CEOs - from a recycling company in Indiana, a furniture company in Kentucky, a brewing company in Colorado, and more - who believe paying higher wages is both the right thing to do and part of a successful business model.

Tampa Electric has used apprenticeships since 1978 to make sure its workforce is the best in the business - trained, prepared, and productive. Apprenticeships improve its bottom line and give the company a competitive advantage.

Budgets are moral documents. They reflect the values of any government and when you're compromising clean air, clean water, and lead, you're making a statement about communities you don't care about.

As long as we're united, and as long as we continue to organize, invest, and lead with our values, we'll be unstoppable.

Donald Trump, you don't stand for our values.

My parents didn't feel that they had any choice but to leave the Dominican Republic. They did, however, choose to become Americans, and they lived American values every day.

The differences between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump in terms of temperament, in terms of values, couldn't be more stark.

Dr. King's last campaign was a labor struggle. Many people are aware that King was assassinated in Memphis in the spring of 1968. Less well-known is what drew him there: solidarity with city sanitation workers, who, without the benefit of union representation, were rising up to protest humiliating pay and deplorable working conditions.