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 Massad, a lawyer who oversaw the U.S. government's $700 billion bank
bailout program, was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace
Gary Gensler. He has spent most of his career at Wall Street law
firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, working on a wide variety of corporate
transaction.
He and two other nominees met little resistance at an earlier
confirmation hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee, which
oversees the CFTC. The agency was initially an overseer of
agricultural and other futures.
But, following the vote, Republican Senator David Vitter from
Louisiana, who does not sit on the committee, blocked Sharon Bowen,
a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins in New York, through a
procedure that can delay her confirmation as a commissioner.
Bowen was also the only nominee to draw a "no" vote in the
Agriculture Committee, from Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of
Georgia.
"I simply don't think (she) is qualified, and I wish in advance to
be on the record as voting 'no,'" Chambliss said.
The third nominee was Chris Giancarlo, an industry veteran at swaps
broker GFI in New York.
The CFTC is renewing its top rank after the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to
clean up Wall Street gave it broad new powers to regulate the
trading activities of the biggest banks.
Under Massad, it will have to prove it can enforce the trading
limits, deal with a deluge of new regulatory data, and work smoothly
with international regulators with whom it is jointly overseeing the
global $690 trillion swaps market.
PONZI SCHEME
Chambliss and Vitter are two of a group of 14 senators who are
supporting the Securities and Exchange Commission in a legal fight
against the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which
Bowen heads.
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In that capacity, she was involved in a decision to deny a payout to
victims of the $7 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Allen
Stanford, who is now serving a 110-year prison sentence.
"That sort of leadership, and complete lack of responsiveness to
Congress and the SEC, has no place at the CFTC," Vitter said in a
statement.
The Stanford Victims Coalition said it had collected signatures from
more than 1,000 people asking the Senate to oppose Bowen's
nomination. Not all those people were victims, said Angie Kogutt,
who is in charge of the group.
By putting a so-called 'hold' on Bowen, Vitter can slow down but not
stop her confirmation.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid will likely seek to resolve
Vitter's concerns so that the hold will be lifted. If Vitter
refuses, Reid could eliminate the hold and move forward on the
nomination with a simple majority vote.
Senate Democrats changed the rules last November to strip
Republicans of their ability to stop most presidential nominees,
except those for the U.S. Supreme Court, with procedural hurdles
known as filibusters. Once the three nominees have made it through
the Senate, Obama can swear them in.
(Reporting by Douwe Miedema; additional reporting by Tom Ferraro;
editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jonathan Oatis)
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