Bush Shores up SEC

January 23, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - As the tendrils of the Enron debacle continue to expand, President Bush took steps to fill two vacancies on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In a recess appointment, Bush appointed Cynthia Glassman of accounting firm Ernst & Young and Isaac Hunt, whose term as an SEC commissioner recently expired, to the SEC. The appointments will shore up the five-member panel, which currently has three vacancies – and a fourth member who wants to leave.

Accounting Experience

Glassman, a former Federal Reserve official, has been with Ernst & Young since 1997, and is now a principal in the firm’s National Tax Department’s quantitative economics and statistics division. The President announced his intention to nominate Glassman, as well as PricewaterhouseCoopers attorney Paul Atkins, in late December.

Hunt, a lawyer, was sworn in as an SEC commissioner in early 1996 and has previously worked at the Department of the Army, as a lawyer in private practice and as an SEC staff attorney, according to Reuters.

Term Limit

Both appointments normally require the approval of the Senate, but Bush acted under a provision of the Constitution which allows the president to make such temporary appointments while the Senate is not in session. Recess appointments may serve until the upcoming session of Congress ends, around the end of 2002.

The White House also said Bush gave lawyers William Cowen and Michael Bartlett recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.


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