A Senate committee vote to re-nominate Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, a Democrat, to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been postponed, leaving her position at the agency up in the air.
The vote to re-nominate Crenshaw was originally scheduled for the morning of Dec. 11 as part of a United States Senate Banking Committee hearing. However, according to a report from Bloomberg, Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown postponed the meeting just minutes before it was due to begin.
Republican Senators then blocked Brown’s request to hold the vote later that day. Brown said in a statement afterward that corporate special interests were running a “disgusting smear campaign” against Crenshaw.
No date for her renomination has been set.
The stalling of Crenshaw’s nomination vote opens the SEC up to the possibility of a three-person Republican SEC majority under the new administration following Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration next year.
It’s also possible for Trump to select Republican Paul Atkins to replace Crenshaw on the board.
On Dec. 4, Trump tapped Atkins as his choice for the next chair of the SEC. Pundits expect Congress to confirm Atkin’s appointment sometime between March and April 2025, depending on how quickly the Senate Banking Committee can act.
Speaking on the Unchained Crypto podcast on Dec. 7, Digital Chamber president Cody Carbone said Trump may look to establish his control over the agency even further by nominating an independent to the five-person board — potentially making it a four-to-one ratio of Trump-aligned commissioners.
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The list of SEC commissioners currently includes two Republicans, Hester “Crypto Mom” Peirce and Mark Uyeda, and three Democrats, Caroline Crenshaw, Gary Gensler, and Jaime Lizarraga.
If Crenshaw is re-nominated, she would be the only Democratic SEC commissioner.
On Nov. 21, current SEC Chair Gary Gensler announced that he would resign from the agency on Jan. 20, 2025.
Lizarraga said he plans to depart the agency on Jan. 17 to spend time with his wife, who is fighting breast cancer.
Many within the crypto industry want to see Crenshaw gone, with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong describing her as a “failure of an SEC Commissioner” in a Dec. 9 post to X.
“She tried to block the Bitcoin ETFs and was worse than Gensler on some issues (which I didn’t think was possible),” Armstrong said. “The Senate Banking Committee should take note - the crypto community is watching this vote.”
Source: Brian Armstrong
Carbone also took aim at her crypto-critical stance in a Dec. 11 letter sent to Brown and Republican Senator Tim Scott.
“In her dissent on spot Bitcoin ETPs, Commissioner Crenshaw mischaracterized the integrity of the Bitcoin market, relying on outdated data and flawed arguments that failed to account for significant advancements in market structure and oversight,” wrote Carbone.
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