Lone Democrat at SEC leaving January 31

[cal04]

Source: Washington Post

The lone Democrat at the Securities and Exchange Commission has notified the White House that she will depart at the end of the month, leaving the agency short-staffed at a time when the stock markets are volatile and Wall Street banks are posting enormous losses related to the mortgage crisis.

Annette L. Nazareth, who started her career at the SEC nearly a decade ago, told President Bush in a letter over the weekend that "it is time for me to pursue other professional opportunities" in the private sector. Her Jan. 31 departure means that the five-member commission will operate without any Democratic representatives at a critical time for the economy and in the waning months of the Bush administration.

The SEC is composed of three members from the president's political party and two from the opposing party. Nazareth's resignation, which she had said last year would be coming, follows the departure of the agency's senior Democrat, Roel C. Campos, for a law partnership in September.

The agency has a major role in policing corruption in the stock markets and protecting investors from fraud and abuses. In response to widespread problems with mortgage-backed investments, SEC enforcement officials have opened three dozen investigations into whether banks and lenders are downplaying their losses and whether executives enriched themselves by trading their own stock based on inside information.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/21/AR2008012101943.html

[sasquatch]

1. How bad is this?

Will it make much of a difference if any?

[truthisfreedom]

2. What exactly is this a sign of?

And sorry for the dangling participle.

[Demeter]

3. Either Getting Out While the Getting Is Good or Giving Up

or both.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. Either Getting Out While the Getting Is Good or Giving Up - yep. Methinks so too

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Things gotta be getting awful messy inside the SEC, and will only get messier - -

Let the Republicans wallow around in the "stew" of their own making.

I wonder if she's about ready to join the ranks of Sibel Edmunds.

I'm sure there are stories to tell . . .

[gratuitous]

5. Who can say for sure?

But the bigger question is when Nazareth leaves, why hasn't the administration gotten on the stick and named a new nominee? Or did they run through their suitable Democratic candidate (singular intended)?