According to the WSJ (article below), Columbia Law School Professor Robert Jackson is expected to be nominated by the White House today to fill the Democratic Commissioner vacancy at the SEC.
As previously reported, Jackson - a Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pick - was among the ten corporate & securities law-focused academics who petitioned the SEC in 2011 to develop rules mandating corporate political spending disclosure, which was among the primary issues that derailed the nominations of Obama's selected picks - Republican Hester Peirce and Democratic Lisa Fairfax - in the Senate last year. In July, as previously reported here, President Trump nominated former Obama nominee Hester Peirce to fill the Republican vacancy on the Commission, but that nomination has not yet moved in the Senate. It's common practice for Republican and Democratic nominees to be paired, and then considered and moved together.
Stay tuned for more information as it develops.
White House Set to Tap Columbia Law Professor for SEC on Friday
Robert Jackson to be nominated to fill vacant Democratic slot
By
Andrew Ackerman
Aug. 31, 2017 8:17 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—The White House is expected on Friday to nominate Columbia University law professor Robert Jackson to a vacant slot on the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the matter.
If confirmed, Mr. Jackson would fill a Democratic opening at the top U.S. markets regulator. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that the White House was preparing to nominate Mr. Jackson.
The law requires partisan balance on the five-member commission and the White House has already tapped Hester Peirce, a researcher at the conservative Mercatus Center, to fill a separate, Republican slot.
Both nominees will likely advance through the Senate as a bipartisan pair, boosting the likelihood that they both win confirmation this fall. They would join an SEC down to just three members: Democrat Kara Stein, Republican Michael Piwowar, and Jay Clayton, the chairman, who is an independent.
Mr. Jackson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment.
Mr. Jackson has written on securities topics such as executive compensation and corporate governance. In 2014, he helped uncover a flaw with the SEC’s corporate-filing system that allowed hedge funds and other rapid-fire investors to gain access to certain market-moving documents ahead of other users of the system. The SEC pledged to correct the flaw.
He is also among a group of 10 academics to petition the SEC in 2011to require public companies to disclose their political-spending activities.
“While we disagree on particular policies, Rob is a brilliant securities law scholar and eminently qualified to serve as an SEC commissioner,” said J.W. Verret, a professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, who befriended Mr. Jackson while they were in law school.
Write to Andrew Ackerman at andrew.ackerman@wsj.com
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