Trump to nominate SEC senior counsel for open Democratic commissioner seat

President Trump on Thursday announced his intention to nominate Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) senior counsel Caroline Crenshaw to fill an open Democratic seat at the financial regulator.

Crenshaw, an SEC attorney since 2013, would replace former commissioner Robert Jackson Jr. as one of the commission’s two Democratic members. The SEC typically has two Republican and two Democratic commissioners with a chairman appointed from the same party as the president. 

Crenshaw served as counsel to Jackson and former Democratic commissioner Kara Stein, who stepped down from the SEC in January 2019. She previously served stints in the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations and the Division of Investment Management.

Crenshaw is also a captain in the United States Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, according to the White House.

If confirmed by the Senate, Crenshaw would join four other Trump appointees at the SEC: Chairman Jay Clayton, Republican commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman, and Democratic commissioner Allison Herren Lee.

The Republican-led SEC has sought to loosen several controversial regulations issued under former President Obama and mandated through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law passed in 2010.

The SEC in June 2019 approved Regulation Best Interest, a set of new standards for stock brokers and financial advisers to replace a more stringent rule issued by the Labor Department in 2016.

The commission is also among four other financial regulators seeking to loosen the “Volcker Rule” banning banks from making certain high-risk investments with company money. The proposed rewrite was released last year but has stalled under backlash from the banking industry and consumer advocates alike.