Christy Goldsmith Romero, a lawyer who spent more than a decade rooting out fraud and other misconduct at banks that received federal bailouts in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, has been tapped to be the next head of the Federal Reserve Bank of America. Deposits, the White House announced on Thursday.
Her selection is the first step in President Biden’s effort to quickly replace the incumbent, Martin Gruenberg, the longtime head of the bank regulator, who said last month he would resign in response to reports of widespread abuse and harassment. at the workplace in the agency. If the Senate Banking Committee moves quickly to hold a hearing and vote on Ms. Goldsmith Romero, she has a chance to get the role before the presidential election in November.
In an emailed statement to reporters, committee chairman Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said Ms. Goldsmith Romero “would bring to the FDIC decades of financial services experience, including valuable experience.”
“She has proven herself to be a strong, independent and fair regulator who is not afraid to do what is right,” he said.
Ms. Goldsmith Romero did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Her path to work is far from certain. Ms. Goldsmith Romero, who is a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate twice, but her next confirmation process is already looking very different. Even before the White House announced her nomination on Thursday, Republicans appeared to be preparing to oppose her.
Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky, a Republican on the House Financial Services Committee who will not have a say in confirmation because he is not a member of the Senate, was the first to criticize her candidacy. In an emailed statement to reporters Thursday, Mr. Barr called the choice “reckless” and said Ms. Goldsmith Romero was not qualified to lead the bank’s regulator.
“Our financial institutions deserve a leader with significant, direct banking experience, not a politicized choice whose background does not match the requirements of the role,” said Mr. Barr.
Most of the work of Mrs. Goldsmith Romero has been with the banks in her role as special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the roughly $450 billion operation designed to stabilize the banking industry after the financial crisis. Ms. Goldsmith Romero and her staff investigated how banks were using their bailout funds and whether they were following rules on foreclosures and other bailout-related consumer relief efforts.
Officials in the Biden administration see her work as particularly important to the FDIC’s top job given the current state of the regulator, which reports from the Wall Street Journal and an outside law firm have described as a pervasive culture of fraud. harassment and abuse by senior managers. against women and young workers. Leaders in the Senate, including Mr. Brown, declared Mr. Gruenberg unfit for the role of rooting out abuse and improving the agency’s culture and the morale of its employees.
If she is confirmed, Ms. Goldsmith Romero would be the first person in about 20 years to take the job without first serving as a Senate aide working on banking issues, a role seen by some in the banking industry as essential to developing deep familiarity with the bank’s regulatory policy. Mr. Gruenberg was a senior adviser on the banking committee’s staff for more than a decade before joining the agency. And its most recent Republican chair, Jelena McWilliams, was also a staff member on the committee.
With Ms. Goldsmith Romero’s appointment, the White House also announced the president’s picks for other financial regulatory posts, including another role focused on banks, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial institutions. Kristin N. Johnson, another commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has been tapped for the role. Ms. Johnson was also considered for the FDIC position.