Dave McCormick Presses Witness How Supreme Court Case On Sexual Orientation Will Impact The EEOC

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In a Senate Health Committee hearing last month, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) questioned nominee to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Brittany Panuccio about a recent Supreme Court ruling on sexual orientation.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to all of you, thank you for your willingness to serve.

00:07Appreciate that very much. Ms. Panuccio, I will start with you. Under the Biden administration,

00:15the EEOC, I guess what I would call radically expanded its authority with multiple EEO decisions

00:23being struck down by the courts for exceeding that authority. And my question to you is,

00:30within that context of having an EEOC that was really out of bounds in the way that it

00:36was looking at issues, what do you intend to do to restore a mainstream perspective to the

00:44EEOC when it comes to labor law? Thank you for your question, Senator. If I have the privilege

00:50of being confirmed to the commission, my overall approach to the law, as it would be in any

00:56role, is to interpret a statute according to the plain meaning of its text within the

01:01four corners of the authority that Congress has given to the EEOC. And so I think that

01:08type of legal perspective and interpretation prevents the kind of expansive interpretations

01:15to what you're referring. Thank you. I want to expand on a recent Supreme Court ruling, 9-0,

01:24a unanimous decision in the Ames versus the Ohio Department of Youth Services,

01:31a sexual orientation case where the Supreme Court, where a heterosexual employee was illegally passed over

01:39for a promotion and eventually demoted in favor of an LGBTQ plus colleague. The court ruled, again,

01:48unanimously that the plaintiff was discriminated against for her sexual orientation. How does that

01:55decision affect the EEOC? How do you see that impacting the handling of cases going forward?

02:03Senator, I think the Ames decision reaffirms the position that the EEOC has taken for decades.

02:11As you mentioned, that was a 9-0 decision written by Justice Jackson, who's often considered the most

02:18liberal member of the court. And in that case, it reaffirms the EEOC's position that there is no

02:24right or wrong type of plaintiff, that the EEOC's doors are open for everyone, every type of complainant

02:31who believes that they have been discriminated against based on a protected status. And so I think

02:37that decision underscores the EEOC's important mission and reaffirms that the position that they

02:43have taken for decades is the correct one in that regard. Well, I agree with you on that because we are

02:51making the decision that we're going to treat people as individuals and not as groups. And I think

02:55it's a very important decision and I think it will have a positive impact on the future of how labor

03:03law is interpreted. Ms. Carey, I want to talk with you briefly about something that I learned at the NLRB

03:15that it's taken a long time to clear cases out there. The median age of all the cases at the NLRB

03:22in the past year was 154 days. That's up from 106 days. That's a long time. People need to get these

03:34issues settled so they can move on with life. And it appears that the Biden administration was

03:42was guilty of forcing that extension because they were focused on overturning decades of precedent in labor

03:51law which stretched it out. And the NLRB rather than handing in cases before the board

03:58in a timely matter based on precedent, we're trying to set new precedents. And I want to just ask you

04:06is that your take on the situation? Is that why the delay occurred and and what can we do to

04:12go back to the precedents that we're accustomed to so that we can get these cases solved more quickly?

04:17Thank you for your question. That is one of the reasons. And the other reason is that staffing is

04:24dramatically down due to attrition and other factors at the board. But that's been something

04:29that's been ongoing for several years. In terms of the backlog, I agree with you. I think that when you

04:36have a general counsel who is trying to overturn a majority of every decision ever held by a Republican

04:44board, that definitely puts a lot of stress on the field agents who are doing their best to keep up

04:50with all the cases that come in. One of the biggest things that I want to do and priority wise is to

04:56do an organizational assessment to understand exactly what is causing those backlogs. If it is this heavy

05:02reliance on the need to overturn precedent, as I said in my opening statement, I respect for longstanding

05:08board precedent. And I don't see a reason to let, you know, the sake of trying to overturn a case get in

05:14the way of an employee who has filed a charge getting a quicker resolution. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:20I just want to add one quick thought to all of you. What people get frustrated most with is not

05:26necessarily the decision, it's the time. It takes so long for people to get things accomplished from

05:33government these days. Please do it with a sense of urgency. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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