BREAKING NEWS: Daniel Gade has withdrawn his name from consideration for a seat on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Sen. Mike Lee (R.-Utah) this week put a block on the renomination of Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The hold on Feldblum’s nomination means that two other nominees — Janet Dhillon and Daniel Gade, both Republicans — will not get a vote either, potentially leaving the commission with just two sitting members when it convenes in January. Without a quorum, no votes can be held.
Chai Feldblum
Typically, nominees to federal agencies are approved as a group, which requires a unanimous vote. If all three current nominees are approved, the EEOC then moves to a 3-2 Republican majority since the president’s party is guaranteed control.
Feldblum is a Democrat first appointed by Barack Obama but renominated to her post by President Trump in December 2017.
Lee opposes Feldbum, the agency’s only openly gay member, on what he calls religious grounds, writing on his website: “One nominee to the commission’s five-member board wants to use the federal agency’s power to undermine our nation’s founding principles.”
Feldblum denies she is trying to impose her LGBTQ views on others. Instead, she has written: “I care deeply about preserving religious pluralism in our country — even if it that means protecting religious organizations whose views I disagree with. That is the point of pluralism.”