[Photo: Eliz. Warren, by Ron Sachs / Zuma]

It’s common knowledge that Donald Trump has been in no particular hurry to fill the vacancies at the SEC and the CFTC. Yes, he just successfully filled the SEC Chair position with Jay Clayton, who was confirmed last week. However, J. Christopher Giancarlo, who currently serves as CFTC Acting Chairman, is watching his nomination as permanent CFTC Chair slowly wend its way through the Senate chamber.   

Heaven knows what this glacial pace might mean for filling the empty commissioner seats at both agencies – 2 at the SEC and 3 at the CFTC.

In any case, we now have word that Bharat Ramamurti, a legislative aide to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, is running to fill one of the vacancies on the SEC. Ramamurti is Warren’s senior counsel on banking and economic policy, and assisted during the Senate investigation of Wells Fargo and its sales account scandal.

As her counsel on the banking committee, Ramamurti has apparently played a prominent role in shaping Warren's policy agenda. Besides working on the Wells investigation, Ramamurti has worked on bipartisan efforts to broker a deal on housing reforms for mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Ramamurti is a graduate of Harvard and Yale Law.

According to Reuters, at least 3 other names were mentioned as possible candidates for a seat on the SEC: Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub, AFL-CIO's office of investment director Heather Slavkin Corzo and Andy Green, a managing director at the Center for American Progress who previously worked for SEC Democratic Commissioner Kara Stein.