It's been a rough year for the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency has been scarred by the crisis on Wall Street and it's taking heat for not catching Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme.
Today President-elect Barack Obama named his pick to lead the agency--Mary Schapiro, a veteran financial regulator, would be the first woman to chair the SEC (her appointment must first be confirmed by the Senate).
Obama called Schapiro "smart and tough." Nice. She's now CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.
In 1994, President Clinton appointed her chairman of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates the U.S. futures markets.
She also spent six years as an SEC commissioner (first appointed by President Reagan in 1988), and she was named acting chairman by President Clinton in 1993.
The AP has this Schapiro quote: "The financial crisis will require a lot of soul-searching in Washington. It will expose our shortcomings and it will provide an opportunity to improve our regulatory system and to take the steps necessary to ensure that the adversity we face today is not repeated."
Floyd Norris of the New York Times describes her as "a veteran and diligent regulator if ever there was one. ...It is a choice that should please those who hope the S.E.C. can recover from what must be the worst year in its history."
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