SEC down one commissioner
Democratic SEC commissioner Roel Campos is stepping down this week, leaving the balance of the group tipped towards Republican favor. Jeremy Hobson looks into how this might affect decision-making.
SEC Commissioner Roel Campos at a meeting on Capitol Hill (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
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Scott Jagow: The agency that regulates the stock market is about to lose one of its commissioners. Democrat Roel Campos leaves the SEC tomorrow to take a job at a law firm. That leaves three Republicans and one Democrat in charge of the agency. Jeremy Hobson looks at how this might affect things.
Jeremy Hobson: The SEC has survived without a full board before. And former commissioner Rick Roberts, who was appointed by the first President Bush, says things worked out just fine.
Rick Roberts: There've been many occasions over the last several decades where there's been less than five members, and I believe that investors were protected and the integrity of our capital markets was protected as well.
Roberts says partisanship is not an issue in most of what the SEC has to deal with.
But University of Delaware professor Charles Elson says on some controversial issues, a smaller commission would hesitate to act.
Charles Elson: But the fact that they're stalled is not so terrible one way or the other. Because in the end, either someone comes on the commission and these issues get resolved, or they're resolved in the meantime in a compromise.
Whether President Bush will replace Commissioner Campos is still up in the air, but Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd says he's committed to finding a successor.
In Washington, I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
