Trump Said Likely to Name Hester Peirce as SEC Commissioner

Hester Peirce, a former Securities and Exchange Commission counsel and Senate aide, is the Trump administration’s likely choice to fill the open Republican seat at the Wall Street regulator, according to people familiar with the matter.

Should President Donald Trump pick Peirce to be an SEC commissioner, her nomination will likely be paired with a candidate backed by Senate Democrats for another vacant seat at the agency, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the process. Candidates that have been discussed for the Democratic spot include Robert Jackson, a Columbia University law professor, and Bharat Ramamurti, an aide to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the people said.

Peirce is a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University who has been sharply critical of the regulatory expansion enacted in response to the 2008 financial crisis. She was initially selected for an SEC seat by President Barack Obama in 2015, but her nomination stalled in the Senate Banking Committee last year along with that of Democrat-backed law professor Lisa Fairfax.