(Credit: AP)The nominations of Hester Peirce and Caroline Crenshaw to serve as commissioners on the Securities and Exchange Commission were approved by the full Senate in a voice vote late Thursday, ending the confirmation process.
Peirce, a Republican, was first sworn in on Jan. 11, 2018. Her second term expires on June 5, 2025. Crenshaw, a Democrat, will serve as a commissioner until June 5, 2024. President Donald Trump nominated both women to the SEC seats in June.
The Senate Banking Committee approved both nominations on Wednesday.
Crenshaw replaces former SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson, who left his SEC seat in February to return to teaching at New York University School of Law. She has been an attorney at the SEC since 2013, including work for Jackson’s office.
Before joining the SEC, Crenshaw practiced law at Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan. She is a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
Finishing Dodd-Frank mandated rules on issues such as executive compensation should also be a priority for the commission, Crenshaw stated, during her nomination hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on July 21.
She also highlighted two aspects of Regulation Best Interest compliance that she views as especially critical: ensuring firms are held “accountable when they are not appropriately mitigating conflicts of interest” and that Form CRS actually provides “valuable” information.
Peirce stated at the July 21 hearing that assessing the agency’s crowdfunding rule would be a priority item for her. Has it “lived up to its potential or are there things that we could do to make them work better?” she asked.
Another priority, Peirce continued, is to “try to work on the commission’s attitude toward innovation, which has been highlighted when we consider crypto.” She has been dubbed “Crypto Mom” by advocates of digital currency.
Crypto “is clearly going to be here to stay and I would like us to set up a regulatory framework that works well for crypto,” Peirce said. “I think we have some of the structure in place to do that, but we have a lot more work to do.”
Earlier, Peirce was a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, served Sen. Richard Shelby’s staff on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and worked as a staff attorney at the SEC.
