President Donald Trump has nominated Caroline Crenshaw to fill the seat on the SEC vacated by Robert Jackson, the White House announced today.
Crenshaw was one of eight nominations sent to the U.S. Senate. According to the White House, if she is approved, Crenshaw’s term would extend until June 5, 2024.
In January, Robert Jackson Jr. announced that he would be leaving the SEC to return to teaching at NYU. He’d been a commissioner since 2018 and has been a foil to Chairman Jay Clayton, retaining a more critical eye toward the financial services industry. He was the only commissioner to vote against passing Regulation Best Interest last June.
"Rather than requiring Wall Street to put investors first, today's rules retain a muddled standard that exposes millions of Americans to the costs of conflicted advice,” Jackson said at the time. “Even worse, contrary to what Americans have heard for a generation, the Commission today concludes that investment advisers are not true fiduciaries.”
The SEC's Reg BI rule goes into effect on June 30.
Crenshaw has been with the SEC since 2013. She has also worked as an associate at the law firm Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, and is also a judge advocate in the U.S. Army JAG Corps. Micah Hauptman, a financial services counsel with the Consumer Federation of America, described Crenshaw as hard-working, with an inside-out knowledge of securities law. She worked as a counsel to both Jackson and Kara Stein, and Hauptman expected her to bring a similar mentality to her work on the commission should she be approved.
"She's her own person, but I think we can expect she'll bring the same passion for the issues and the same investor protection mindset to the job," he said.
According to the SEC, the president can appoint a commissioner with approval by the Senate; the terms are staggered so that a single commissioner’s term will end on June 5 each year. The president also selects one of the commissioners as chairman, and SEC rules mandate that no more than three commissioners may belong to the same political party in an attempt to ensure the commission is a nonpartisan body. Crenshaw's nomination is being paired with Hester Peirce, a Republican commissioner who is undergoing renomination, and Hauptman said that paired nominations typically sail through the Senate confirmation process without incident.
"Obviously, we're in a pandemic, so nothing is typical," he said. "But I don't expect there to be any issues with their nominations."
