Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Sanders,

As organizations committed to civil rights, workers’ rights, and gender justice, we urge you to rigorously question and closely review the records of Andrea Lucas and Brittany Panuccio, who are nominated to serve as commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The Senate hearing and confirmation process is a crucial vehicle for transparency and accountability on the President’s nominations. While Acting Chair Lucas has served as an EEOC commissioner since 2020, she was confirmed without a hearing, and the Senate has never asked questions to evaluate her qualifications to carry out the EEOC’s mission to protect working people. Her record at the EEOC, particularly since being named Acting Chair in January of this year, raises significant concerns about her commitment to preserving the integrity of the agency and protecting the rights of all workers to be free from discrimination. The confirmation of Panuccio would give Lucas the power to take further action to shape the EEOC’s priorities and enforcement strategy. It is imperative that the committee hold hearings on both nominations so you and your colleagues may carefully scrutinize the nominees’ records in a public forum to determine their fitness to lead the EEOC in its vital mission to protect working people.

The EEOC is an independent agency that serves a critically important role in ensuring equal opportunity for workers in the United States, enforcing laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), race, national origin, age, disability and religion. The EEOC not only investigates these charges of discrimination, litigating when appropriate, but it also plays a key role in preventing discrimination through outreach, education, data collection, and technical assistance programs. Workers around the country rely on the EEOC to enforce their rights. In FY 2024, the EEOC received 88,531 new charges of discrimination, a nearly 9 percent increase from the previous year,i and through its enforcement actions, EEOC obtains real relief for workers–from 2014-2024, the agency recovered $5.6 billion for workers who had experienced discrimination.ii Given the importance of the EEOC to the lives and livelihoods of millions of workers, the American people deserve a transparent hearing and confirmation process to ensure the leaders tasked with this immense responsibility are held accountable to the people they serve.

Read the full letter and see the list of signatories in the official letter here.