Senate Banking panel approves financial regulatory nominees

By Peter Schroeder - 03/19/13 10:10 AM ET

The Senate Banking Committee advanced a pair of financial regulatory nominees Tuesday.

The panel approved President Obama's picks of Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Richard Cordray to stay on as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The pair of nominees now head to the Senate floor, where White is expected to win full confirmation. But Cordray appears to be stuck in the same partisan standoff over the agency he oversees that blocked his original nomination, requiring him to be installed via a contentious recess appointment.

The CFPB nominee was approved by the Democrat-controlled committee in a strict party line vote. White received broad support, clearing the committee with near unanimous support, with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) serving as the lone dissenting vote.

In a statement, Brown said he opposed the nominee to protest "Washington's long-held bias towards Wall Street and its inability to find watchdogs outside of the very industry they are meant to police."

He added that he did not question White's skills or integrity as an attorney, and that she would have "plenty of opportunities to prove me wrong. I hope she will."

During a confirmation hearing one week ago, Brown had pressed White on her time as a white-collar defense attorney and her "revolving door" in and out of public service. White previously served as federal prosecutor before joining a law firm.

Asked about her work defending financial institutions and executives, she vowed that she would be able to separate the two and work on behalf of the American taxpayer if confirmed. She received praise for her past work as a federal prosecutor from members in both parties.

Republicans say they have no grievances with Cordray's work leading the bureau, but instead contend that the agency's structure needs to be changed to make it more accountable, and are committed to holding up Cordray's nomination until they get those changes.

Republicans want the bureau's director position replaced with a bipartisan board, to have its budget brought under the control of congressional appropriators, and to give other financial regulators more power to veto the bureau's rules.

Democrats and the White House have given no indication they are willing to consider the changes, leaving Cordray's nomination in a logjam. His current term at the agency will expire at the end of the year, and his recess appointment is also being challenged as part of a lawsuit challenging other pieces of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which created the CFPB.

This post updated at 10:21am.