Democrats Question EEOC Acting Chair on Trump’s Agency Influence

Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas defended her view during her Senate panel confirmation hearing that the civil rights agency is not independent from the president’s authority as she fielded questions about its recent work.

Democrats on the Senate’s labor committee raised the issue repeatedly at the Wednesday hearing. They questioned whether she believes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has autonomy to set aside President Donald Trump’s directives.

Lawmakers pushed Lucas, a Republican up for confirmation to a second five-year term, on Trump’s ability to influence the agency’s litigation and policy focus, as well as his unprecedented decision to fire two Democratic commissioners in January, leaving the agency without a voting quorum.

It is “entirely appropriate” for the president to direct the EEOC’s enforcement actions “consistent with the law,” Lucas said.

“I think the American people should be delighted by the idea that President Trump is leading with an amazing vision for civil rights for all Americans, and that that should thrill them,” she said.

One of the commissioners fired by Trump, Jocelyn Samuels, is suing Trump over her termination, claiming the firing “undermined the EEOC’s historic independence.”

A hurdle in Samuels’ case, compared to fired officials at other agencies, is the lack of explicit removal protections in the statute establishing the EEOC, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she would oppose any nominations to the EEOC until Trump reinstates Samuels and former Chair Charlotte Burrows.

But Lucas reiterated that the president has the authority to remove EEOC members at-will.

“The EEOC is not an independent agency, and in fact every single one of the former Democrat members that were terminated by President Trump, they know that,” Lucas said in response to separate questioning from Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

Murray asked Lucas about a post she made in 2021 on then-Twitter criticizing former President Joe Biden’s decision to fire EEOC general counsel Sharon Gustafson.

In the post, Lucas denounced Biden’s action “against our independent agency” as “an injection of partisanship where it had been absent.”

But Lucas on Wednesday walked back that description of the EEOC. “I was wrong at that time,” she said. “The agency is an executive branch agency.”

Kim said if the EEOC steps away from having independence, it could lead Americans to lose trust in the agency.

“There comes a problem, though, if your agency does not have credibility, as being long derived from the sense of fairness, and instead can come at the whim of potential coercive influence or political whim,” Kim added.

Executive Orders

Trump signed a series of executive orders that together seek to roll back federal transgender protections and target diversity programs in the federal and private sectors.

Even without a quorum, Lucas has worked to change the EEOC’s actions around gender identity protections. The agency filed to dismiss at least seven transgender bias cases it brought under the Biden administration.

Lucas said she decided in consultation with career staff to back out of the cases in order to comply with Trump’s executive order, which challenged the Biden administration’s interpretation of the landmark US Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. The high court decision found Title VII bars workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The EEOC under Biden thereafter passed anti-harassment guidance that said employers can’t misgender workers or bar them from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Trump’s executive order directed the agency to rescind it. Gender identity portions of the guidance were vacated by a Texas federal judge in May.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) noted one of the lawsuits the EEOC had brought on behalf of a transgender Illinois farm worker alleged that she was deadnamed and subjected to groping, sexual comments, and a co-worker who exposed himself.

“You moved to dismiss this case,” Baldwin said. “Do you think it is appropriate for someone to be harassed like this anywhere, let alone at work?”

“The only question before me at any particular moment is whether or not I can comply with the scope of my authority under the laws entrusted to me by Congress and, as an executive branch agency head, the president’s directives,” Lucas responded.

If confirmed by the Senate, Lucas would lead a commission lacking a three-member quorum needed to vote on policy and most litigation.

Trump’s nominee to a third seat, Brittany Bull Panuccio, an assistant US attorney in Florida, has not been scheduled yet for a hearing or vote.