Fresh from her Wells Fargo ‘victory’, an emboldened Senator Elizabath Warren is taking aim at SEC Chief Mary Jo White. As WSJ reports, Warren’s ongoing efforts to block administration nominees seen as too close to big business have led her to demand President Obama fire White for her decision not to craft a rule requiring public companies to disclose their political spending activities.
Tensions between Ms. Warren and Ms. White erupted at a June Senate hearing, where the Massachusetts lawmaker said she was “more disappointed than ever” in the regulator’s tenure.
Ms. White shot back: “I’m disappointed in your disappointment.”
But now, as The Wall Street Journal reports, Warren is stepping up her rhetoric, demanding the Obama administration fire the SEC Chief:
While it is highly unlikely the Obama administration will oblige Ms. Warren in its final months, the request comes as the former Harvard law professor and other progressive Democrats seek to pull their party to the left and influence the selection of the next round of presidential appointees after the November election.
The strategy builds on efforts by progressives to block Obama administration nominees seen as too close to big business. Ms. White, an independent who was sworn in as SEC chief in April 2013, had been a prominent federal prosecutor and had also worked as a top corporate attorney.
The group claimed a win in 2015 when its opposition to Antonio Weiss because of his Wall Street ties led him to withdraw from consideration for a key Treasury Department post. He ended up as a top adviser to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. Ms. Warren and her allies were also instrumental in torpedoing consideration of a well-known corporate securities lawyer for an SEC post last year. The post remains unfilled.
Ms. Warren is again targeting the SEC chief for her decision not to craft a rule requiring public companies to disclose their political spending activities—even though the agency is restricted by law from working on such a rule this year. The senator also denounced an initiative to eliminate duplicative or outmoded corporate disclosures—a project Ms. Warren dubbed a “far-reaching, anti-disclosure initiative.”
“Chair White’s comprehensive anti-disclosure agenda runs directly contrary to the SEC’s purpose,” Ms. Warren wrote in a 12-page letter Friday to Mr. Obama. “The only way to return the SEC to its intended purpose is to change its leadership.”
Ironic given the massively tilted donations in the current election campaign…
Specifically, Ms. Warren is calling on the White House to immediately demote Ms. White to a commissioner and at the same time, to designate a different chairman from among the two remaining commissioners. That would presumably mean elevating Kara Stein, the agency’s sole Democrat, to the top office, though Ms. Warren’s letter isn’t explicit.
Unhappy with a 2010 Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited corporate donations, many Democrats have seized on the strategy of using the SEC’s unique powers to force such companies to disclose their political spending activities. Democrats believe more transparency—while not as strong as concrete limits—could prompt some companies to spend less on politics if shareholders or other influential groups protest the giving.
In her letter Friday, Ms. Warren characterized the discolsure project far differently, saying it was “cooked up by big business lobbyists seeking to reduce the amount of information public companies must make available to their investors.”
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