Huizenga to chair influential subcommittee overseeing Wall Street

Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) will chair the influential House Financial Services subcommittee overseeing Wall Street, committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) announced Friday.

Huizenga will replace former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), one of a handful of incumbent House Republicans to lose their reelection campaigns, as chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Investment.

{mosads}The committee has jurisdiction over much of the financial sector, including credit rating agencies, broker-dealers, mutual funds, accounting standards, corporate governance and certain bonds. It also oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street’s top watchdog.

Chairing the committee usually yields tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Wall Street. 

In a statement, Huizenga called the selection an “incredible honor and opportunity” and said he’d “use free market principles to enact substantive yet commonsense reforms that will increase efficiency within the financial system, ensure proper liquidity in the markets and strengthen market structure.”

{mosads}The subpanel, formerly called the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises, will drop its oversight of federal housing firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of a change in jurisdiction.

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) was announced Friday as chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance.