President Donald Trump sent four nominations to the Senate on November 12 for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The slate includes two Democrats and two Republicans, representing the first time this administration has put forward Democratic nominees for either commission.
New faces for the SEC and CFTC
The White House named Nathan Anonick and Matthew Rowland for the CFTC, and Kristin Johnson and Steven Levine for the SEC. If confirmed, the SEC would have four of five seats filled, while the CFTC would reach three of five members. This staffing comes after the Clarity Act collapsed in the Senate this fall, leaving the agencies to use their own authority to manage digital assets.
| Nominee | Agency | Party | Term Ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nathan Anonick | CFTC | Republican | June 19, 2031 |
| Matthew Rowland | CFTC | Democrat | April 13, 2028 |
| Kristin Johnson | SEC | Democrat | June 5, 2029 |
| Steven Levine | SEC | Republican | June 5, 2030 |
The CFTC currently operates with Michael Selig as its only Senate-confirmed member. Both CFTC nominees come from the Senate Agriculture Committee. Nathan Anonick, a Republican, serves as legislative counsel to Chairman John Boozman and helped negotiate the Agriculture Committee’s portion of the Clarity Act. Matthew Rowland, a Democrat, is a CFTC attorney detailed to the committee who worked on the Clarity Act and a 2024 crypto bill.
At the SEC, Steven Levine, a Republican, would take the seat held by Hester Peirce, the head of the agency’s Crypto Task Force. Levine previously worked at the SEC, where Mark Uyeda named him deputy chief of staff in February 2025. Kristin Johnson, a Democrat and former CFTC commissioner, would replace Caroline Crenshaw. During her time at the CFTC until September 2025, Johnson argued that DeFi platforms acting as intermediaries "can and should be regulated."
A tight window for confirmation
The Senate Banking Committee handles the SEC picks, while the Agriculture Committee reviews the CFTC nominees. A Democratic takeover of the Senate in January creates a short timeframe for these appointments. Senate Republican leaders set November 20 as the date for committees to clear nominees so they can bundle them before the lame-duck session ends.
The SEC recently issued an "innovation exemption" for tokenized stocks and proposed rules for investment advisers to custody crypto. The CFTC has moved to define event contracts as "swaps" and floated bringing crypto exchanges under federal oversight. I find the sudden shift toward Democratic nominees after the Clarity Act failed to be a reactive move to fill a regulatory vacuum. This bipartisan slate offers the commissions the quorum needed to turn proposals into durable rules before the political calculus changes in January.
