What’s in Store for the Latest Federal Reserve Board Nominee?

As you may know, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Nominations Tracker continuously monitors the confirmation process of candidates for top jobs at the major independent financial regulators. Feel free to check out the tool out yourself, but we could provide a bit of helpful context on the White House’s announcement today that they will nominate Allan Landon to the Federal Reserve Board:

If Landon is confirmed, he would join eight other financial regulatory nominees approved by the Senate since January 2014. If the recent past is any indication, he could expect a lengthy process. Last January, the president announced three nominations—Stanley Fischer, Lael Brainerd, and Jerome Powell—to be governors on the Federal Reserve Board and the Senate took an average of 142 days to confirm them. Janet Yellen was confirmed as chair of the Fed in January 2014, 89 days after she was nominated for that position, while Fischer was confirmed 150 days after his separate nomination to be vice chairman of the Fed.

Of course, the Obama administration still needs to fill two more positions on the Federal Reserve Board: one as a governor and one as the vice chairman for supervision. We do not yet know whether the president plans to nominate Landon for the seat vacated by Sarah Bloom Raskin 299 days ago in March, or the one vacated by Jeremy Stein 223 days ago in May. The choice matters since the term to which Raskin was confirmed expires on February 1, 2016, while Stein’s expires two years later. The position of vice chair for supervision has been vacant for 1630 days since it established by the Dodd-Frank Act in July 2010, according to the Nominations Tracker.

Justin Schardin, associate director of the Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative, frequently provides comments and analysis on financial policy developments, including the BPC’s Nominations Tracker. He can be reached at [email protected]