Trump Taps Florida Assistant US Attorney for Open EEOC Seat (2)

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is one step closer to a long-awaited quorum after President Donald Trump nominated Brittany Bull Panuccio, an assistant US attorney in Florida, to serve on the civil rights panel.

An EEOC employee confirmed the nomination of the Republican attorney to the open commission seat Wednesday.

Panuccio’s approval by the US Senate would bring the EEOC up to the three members needed to hold votes, allowing it to fully carry out a new Trump-era agenda.

Republican Acting Chair Andrea Lucas and Democrat Kalpana Kotagal are currently the only members of the commission.

The White House fired two Democratic EEOC commissioners in January, clearing the way for an eventual Republican panel majority to shift the agency’s focus to Trump-aligned priorities such as combating corporate diversity programs, unwinding transgender protections, and protecting against religious bias.

Panuccio would serve a term expiring in July 2029 if she wins Senate confirmation. She would fill the seat vacated by Keith Sonderling, whose term expired in 2024. He is now the deputy US secretary of labor.

Panuccio is a former special counselor at the US Department of Education. She was also an associate at Jones Day, a firm Trump has drawn from in hiring attorneys to work in both his first and second administrations.

Panuccio clerked earlier in her career for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Lucas signaled once she has a quorum, she would hold votes to rescind or modify some policies approved by the commission during the Biden administration.

Those include harassment guidance that outlined protections for nonbinary and transgender workers, and pregnancy bias rules that require workplace accommodations for employees seeking abortions.

Democrats would have maintained a majority on the board until July 2026, when the term for former Commissioner Jocelyn Samuels expired.Trump fired Samuels and former EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows, in an unprecedented move that Samuels is challenging in D.C. federal court.

Trump has yet to name a nominee for general counsel of the EEOC, a position that will be key to shaping the commission’s litigation priorities.

Andrew Rogers, a former chief of staff to Lucas, was named acting general counsel in February, but the president tapped Rogers in March to serve as head of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

Spokespeople for the EEOC and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the nomination Wednesday.