Thomas E. Perez, whose nomination to the nation’s top civil rights post was held up for more than six months by Republican opposition, won Senate confirmation Tuesday.

The Senate voted 72-22 to confirm Perez to be the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. President Obama nominated him in March.

Perez was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration and special counsel to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy , D-Mass.

Since 2007, Perez has served as Maryland’s secretary of labor, overseeing state programs on labor, workforce development and professional licensing.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Perez’s nomination, 17-2, on June 4. Panel Republicans Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma voted against the nomination at the time, citing concerns over Perez’s past efforts on behalf of illegal immigrants.

Perez, the son of Dominican immigrants, had served on the board for the Central American Solidarity Association of Maryland, a Latino community advocacy group.

On Tuesday, Coburn said he opposed the nomination because of Perez’s opposition to English-only laws adopted by some states.

“It’s his kind of thinking that expands well beyond what our founders ever thought was a guaranteed civil right,” Coburn said. “I think his viewpoint is a disaster for the future of this country in terms of what is a civil right and what isn’t.”

Sessions also criticized Perez’s work for immigrants but reserved most of his time to condemn the Civil Rights Division for its decision in May to drop a voter intimidation case against three members of the New Black Panther Party for their outside a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day.