At a Wednesday's Senate Health Committee hearing, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) questioned Andrea Lucas, nominee to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
00:07Your response to an earlier question made it sound like you don't believe that the EEOC is an independent agency.
00:13I just want to confirm your position on this.
00:15That's correct.
00:16The EEOC is not an independent agency.
00:18And in fact, every single one of the former Democrat members that were terminated by President Trump, they know that.
00:25They know that, and so do colleagues across the decades.
00:28Since the 1970s, the EEOC's Office of Legal Counsel, as well as the Department of Justice's Legal Counsel,
00:34has held that we are an executive branch agency.
00:36In fact, to rule otherwise or conclude otherwise would make us unconstitutional,
00:41because we accepted jurisdiction over the ADEA, the Age Discrimination Inemployment Act, in the 1970s.
00:48And since then, the only way that could be constitutional would be for us to be an executive branch agency.
00:53We have accordingly complied with that for decades.
00:55So I just want to ask you, in terms of your own work, has anyone from the White House or elsewhere in the executive branch urged you, urged or suggested to you or your staff to dismiss a case, take on a specific case, or decide in a certain way?
01:11Respectfully, Senator, I cannot breach deliberative privilege or attorney-client privilege or Title VII confidentiality, so I'm unable to be responsive to your question.
01:19So you can't say a simple no on that?
01:22To answer your question would require me to breach the privileges.
01:25Well, I guess maybe I'll frame it in a different way.
01:27Would that be appropriate?
01:29Would it be appropriate for the White House to tell you to take on a certain case, dismiss a certain case, or to rule in a certain way?
01:37I can't engage in hypotheticals.
01:40Look, it's not a hypothetical, because you're saying to me that you are not an independent agency.
01:45You report to who?
01:46I report to the president.
01:47So if the president gave you a directive, what would you do?
01:51It would depend on what the directive was, but I report to the president.
01:54So you report to the president, you take directives from the president?
01:59I do take directives from the president, yes.
02:01Correct.
02:02So if the president issued a directive saying that he wants you to take on, and look, I will just say whoever the president is,
02:09because if you go through this term, it could very well be another president, you have to follow that directive.
02:16If the president gives me a lawful directive, which I'm confident that he would do, then I would bring you that directive,
02:22and I think it is entirely appropriate for the president to direct the enforcement actions of the agency.
02:27So it's entirely appropriate for a president to tell you that the president wants you to dismiss a particular case?
02:37Again, the president directed us to comply with the law, and we're doing so.
02:42Is it within the law for you to be able to dismiss a case?
02:47The agency has prosecutorial discretion at all times.
02:51Correct.
02:52So I just want to point out the damages and the challenges of what happens if you are moving away from this idea of some independence.
03:02The EOC is founded upon this idea of protecting rights for all Americans, correct?
03:08It is.
03:09Civil rights for all Americans.
03:10Yes.
03:11There comes a problem, though, if your agency does not have credibility as being one derived from a sense of fairness,
03:21and instead can come at the whim of potential coercive influence or political whim.
03:27So I just want to point out to you where I see the faults of what you're saying in terms of EOC not being an independent agency.
03:36I think the American people will lose credibility, lose trust in the EOC because you have a very particular role.
03:43And I wanted to be able to explain to you and the American people what the problem would arise in.
03:48The fact that you are saying that the president is your boss, that you take direction from the president,
03:55and if the president tells you to dismiss a case or to go after a particular employer or to rule in a particular way,
04:04I just find that to be a dangerous place for us and our government and our democracy.
04:10Respectfully, decades, for 30, 40 years, the agency has taken this consistent position.
04:16It's done okay in that time, and I'm confident it will continue to do okay.
04:20But I think the American people should be delighted at the idea that President Trump is leading with an amazing vision for civil rights for all Americans,
04:28and that that should thrill them.
04:30That he is, again, as many have said, seeking to restore the golden age of a worker
04:34and dismantling the identity politics that have been present far too often at the EOC.
04:41Well, I just want to remind you that, you know, your boss is not the president.
04:45Your boss is the American people.
04:47And that we swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a particular president.
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