Trump Signals New Openness to Filling Democratic Seats on SEC, CFTC, Easing Frictions Over Crypto Bill

Speaking in the Oval Office Monday, Trump said, “There are certain areas we do look at, and certain areas that we do share power, and I’m open to that,” Decrypt reported.

The president’s refusal to date to fill vacant Democratic seats on the financial regulatory commissions has been a key sticking point for party in negotiations over the market-structure bill. Democrats are reluctant to go along with handing new oversight authority to the agencies without representation on the rulemaking board.

In an interview with Decrypt at the Blockchain Association’s annual policy summit in early December Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a lead negotiator on the legislation, said he has “directly made it clear” to the White House that if the president does not appoint Democrats to the SEC and CFTC, it would “undermine our ability” to get the market structure bill over the finish line.

On Monday, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), chair of the Senate Banking Committee, abandoned his push for a committee vote on the legislation until 2026 as negotiations continue.

By law, five-member regulatory commissions like the SEC, CFTC, FTC and FCC are required to have two members from a minority party. But Trump has refused to fulfill that mandate, contrary to all previous presidents, by declining to appoint Democrats. The CFTC, for instance, is currently operating under a sole acting chair, Republican Caroline Pham, giving her unilateral authority over policies and decisions.

Related: CFTC Gives Formal Blessing to Spot Trading of Crypto on Registered Exchange

Trump has also fired Democrats from commissions whose terms were still running, despite the legal standard that Senate-confirmed commissioners can only be removed for cause.

Trump’s professed new openness to filling the vacant seats is clearly aimed at appeasing Senate Democrats, reflecting the high priority he puts on advancing his agenda of making the U.S. into a crypto powerhouse an integrating crypto trading into the broader financial system. Getting the market-structure bill through the Senate will require 60 votes, which currently means persuading at least seven Democrats to vote with the GOP.

That appeasement may not be enough to satisfy the opposition, however. Adding the Democrats’ anxiety, the Supreme Court is widely expected to overturn the for-cause requirement, in a case involving a Democratic FTC commission Trump fired, giving him a free hand to dismiss any commissioner for any reason, or for no reason.

“It is a deep concern,” Booker told Decrypt. “This is a massive expansion of presidential power. We’ve seen what [Trump] has done with this power already, to advantage his friends in a very corrupting way.”

In addition to the Banking Committee, the Senate Agricultural Committee, which has jurisdiction over the CFTC, also needs to approve the market-structure measure before it can come to the floor for a vote by the full Senate. The measure has drawn more bipartisan support on the Ag committee than on banking, but opposition could harden if Trump reneges on his commitment to fill the Democratic seats on the commission.

Any market-structure bill that gets through the Senate will also need to be reconciled with the House-passed Clarity Act, which could further delay it on the way to the president’s desk.