Nov 13, 2026, 12:05 p.m. EST
2 min read
Summary
- The U.S. Senate Banking Committee quickly scheduled a hearing for President Donald Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission nominations.
- The two nominees are set for a committee hearing next week, though the Senate Agriculture Committee hasn’t yet announced when it might conduct a confirmation hearing for the other two nominees for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Not long after President Donald Trump put forward new commissioner selections for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the relevant Senate panel already had Trump’s candidates scheduled for an upcoming hearing next week.
This represents an unusually swift turnaround, yet it highlights the administration’s pressing circumstance of having only a limited number of weeks left where the Republican party keeps the Senate majority, allowing them to push critical nominations through the approval process during their final days. Late Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee revised its schedule to review multiple nominations at a November 19 hearing.
Among the candidates are the two individuals — attorney Steven Levine, who has worked as a senior counsel at the Department of Labor and served as current Commissioner Mark Uyeda’s deputy chief of staff, and former Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Kristin Johnson — chosen by Trump to occupy vacant seats at the SEC. Following her departure from the CFTC, Johnson, who is a Democrat, has been employed as a professor at the George Washington University School of Law.
Simultaneously, as the White House revealed the two SEC choices, it likewise put forward two prospective CFTC commissioners, which also featured both a Democratic and a Republican candidate: Nathan Anonick, a Republican staffer for the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Matthew Rowland, a Democratic selection who previously served on Johnson’s CFTC staff.
The agriculture committee, which must similarly approve Trump’s fresh candidates for the CFTC, has not yet set a date for a hearing.
Committee Chairman John Boozman “welcomes these nominations and looks forward to holding a hearing soon,” a spokesperson stated via email.
Putting forward Democrats is an uncommon move for this administration, which has otherwise attempted to oust opposition party members from positions on regulatory boards and commissions. Since the beginning of last year, the White House had allowed both the SEC and CFTC to shrink down to exclusively Republican members — two at the SEC and a solitary member at the CFTC, Chairman Mike Selig.
Historically, regulatory nominees are frequently introduced from both parties simultaneously to facilitate their confirmation, providing each party with a candidate to back. In this specific scenario, the exact positions the nominees will fill have placed the Democrats into the vacancies possessing the shortest remaining duration on their current terms.
Once a committee clears a nominee, the full Senate can proceed with a vote to ratify their appointment. The active congressional term ends in early January, although activities generally slow down by mid-December as holiday recesses draw near.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/11/13/u-s-senate-banking-committee-races-toward-hearing-on-new-sec-nominations.
