SEC, CFTC Down to 3 Commissioners After Peirce Exit — SkimNews
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- Hester Peirce is leaving the SEC on Friday — about two months before her 18-month term extension ended — leaving the agency with just two commissioners (Chair Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda), only the second time in US history the SEC has operated with two commissioners.
- Michael Selig has been the sole CFTC commissioner since December 2025 after acting chair Caroline Pham's departure, making the CFTC's crypto oversight a one-person operation.
- Seven commissioner seats across the two agencies will sit empty after Friday, and although President Trump is the only official empowered to nominate replacements, the White House has announced no picks despite vetting four CFTC candidates per a September 4 CNBC report.
- A White House official said Trump intends to nominate members to both agencies "in the near future," while a CFTC spokesperson said Selig "welcomes new Commissioners" and that the agency is "more than equipped" to oversee crypto.
- The CLARITY Act, which would have given the CFTC expanded digital-asset authority, failed in the Republican-controlled Senate earlier this month, leaving both regulators to advance crypto rules through agency rulemaking rather than legislation.
- Senate Democrats wrote to Trump and Majority Leader John Thune in June accusing the administration of intent to "retain complete control over these agencies, with little interest in working in good faith with Congress."
Why it matters: With seven empty seats and no announced nominees, crypto oversight at both regulators now rests with three people who all lean Republican, sidelining the bipartisan structure Congress designed and leaving rulemaking — not the failed CLARITY Act — as the path forward for digital-asset policy.
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