Trump Nominates Four to the SEC and CFTC, Senate Confirmation Pending

President Donald Trump has nominated four people to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a White House notice dated 12 November 2026. Two of the nominations are for the SEC and two for the CFTC. The Senate has referred them to committee. Confirmation is pending. None of the four has been confirmed.

The White House listed the nominations in these terms:

“Kristin N. Johnson, of Michigan, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission for a term expiring June 5, 2029, vice Caroline A. Crenshaw, term expired.”

“Steven Levine, of Maryland, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission for a term expiring June 5, 2030, vice Hester Maria Peirce, term expired.”

“Nathan Anonick, of Virginia, to be a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for a term expiring June 19, 2031, vice Rostin Behnam, term expired.”

“Matthew Rowland, of the District of Columbia, to be a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for the remainder of the term expiring April 13, 2028, vice Summer K. Mersinger.”

The last of those four does not add “term expired” after Mersinger’s name, unlike the other three entries.

Referred to Senate committees, not confirmed

The Senate’s list of civilian nominations in committee records all four as having been referred on 12 November 2026. Kristin N. Johnson is listed as PN1489-2 and Steven Levine as PN1489-3, both referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, for the same SEC terms given in the White House notice. Nathan Anonick is listed as PN1489-1 and Matthew Rowland as PN1489-4, both referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, for the same CFTC terms. The Senate list does not include the White House’s “vice” wording, and it does not show a confirmation vote.

What Reuters and Bloomberg Law report about the slate

Party affiliations and biographical details do not appear in the White House notice. They come from press reports.

Reuters reported that the White House had sent “bipartisan nominations” to the Senate, and that Johnson and Rowland are Democrats while Levine and Anonick are Republicans. Reuters said Johnson, a Democrat, was previously a CFTC commissioner, appointed by then-President Joe Biden. It also said the nominations come as President Trump’s Republican Party “is set to lose control of the chamber in January following last week’s midterm election defeat.” That is Reuters’ account of the Senate arithmetic, not a finding in the White House or Senate records.

Bloomberg Law likewise described a “bipartisan slate.” It said Levine, a Republican, has served as a senior official on the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, and that Johnson, a Democrat, is a former CFTC commissioner and a law school professor. For the CFTC seats, Bloomberg Law said Anonick, a Republican, is a senior counsel on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and that Rowland, a Democrat, also serves as a staffer for that panel.

Reuters also reported that CFTC Chairman Mike Selig, whom it said was picked by Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2025, described the nominations of Rowland and Anonick in a post on X as “two strong bipartisan picks” and said he looked forward to working with them. TSN has not independently verified that post; the wording is reported here as Reuters gave it.

This article does not attribute any cryptocurrency policy views to the four nominees. None were sourced from the White House notice, the Senate committee list, Reuters or Bloomberg Law for that purpose.

The CFTC, one of the two agencies at issue, has recently been in the news on TSN for market-structure decisions rather than for these vacancies. It has said equity perpetual futures can trade on US exchanges, sued Utah to stop a state case involving Kalshi, and been the regulator in the background as Kalshi opened US single-stock perpetual futures trading. Those are separate stories. They do not speak to the views of Johnson, Levine, Anonick or Rowland.

A nomination is not a confirmation

The only official acts recorded here are a presidential nomination and a Senate committee referral. The White House sent names and terms to the Senate on 12 November 2026. The Senate’s own list places those names in committee the same day. That is not a confirmation, and it is not a committee vote. Until the Senate acts further, the four remain nominees, and the seats described in the “vice” lines are not filled by them.

The “vice” wording itself is a statement about which expired or unexpired term each person has been nominated to occupy, not a statement that the predecessor has already been replaced. Three of the White House entries say “term expired.” Rowland’s entry is written differently, as a nomination “for the remainder of the term expiring April 13, 2028, vice Summer K. Mersinger,” without the “term expired” phrase. Those distinctions come from the notice and should be left as they are.

What Reuters and Bloomberg Law add is context the official papers do not provide: that the slate is described as bipartisan, how the four are identified by party, and brief job histories. Reuters’ point about Republicans being set to lose control of the Senate in January is likewise a press report about the political calendar, not a Senate record of how or when these nominations will be handled. It does not turn a referral into a timetable for confirmation.

The same caution applies to the Selig remark. It is a comment Reuters attributed to a post on X about the two CFTC nominees. It is not a Senate action, and it is not an official CFTC confirmation of the nominations. Readers should treat it as reported colour from the agency’s chair, not as evidence that the seats have been filled.

Sources

• White House, “Nominations Sent to the Senate,” 12 November 2026
• US Senate, Nominations in Committee (Civilian)
• Reuters, “White House sends CFTC, SEC role picks to Senate for approval,” 12 November 2026, as carried by StreetInsider
• Bloomberg Law, “Trump Nominates Bipartisan Slate of CFTC, SEC Commissioners,” 12 November 2026

Related stories

• CFTC Says Equity Perpetual Futures Can Now Trade on US Exchanges is a recent TSN account of a CFTC market-structure decision, separate from these nominations.
• CFTC Sues Utah to Stop Its Kalshi Case, the 10th State It Has Taken On
• Kalshi Opens US Single-Stock Perpetual Futures Trading