Dismissing concerns, Panel Advances White’s S.E.C. Nomination

Mary Jo White cleared an important hurdle on her path to becoming a top Wall Street regulator, as a panel of lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly backed her nomination.

Dismissing concerns about Ms. White’s close ties to Wall Street, the Senate Banking Committee cast a 21-1 vote in her favor, sending the nomination to the full Senate. The committee’s broad bipartisan support for Ms. White, President Obama’s pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, suggests that she is poised to sail through the Senate in the days ahead.

In contrast, the committee offered muted support for another financial regulator, Richard Cordray, who is in line to lead the Obama administration’s new consumer protection watchdog. Mr. Cordray eked out a 12-10 party-line vote on Tuesday.

And even Ms. White faces some remaining skeptics. While every Republican on the committee supported her nomination, a lone Democrat balked. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who opposed Ms. White, continued to sound alarms about her turns through the revolving door connecting government and private practice. He noted that Ms. White, a former federal prosecutor who spent the last decade representing big banks like JPMorgan Chase and UBS, could carry conflicts of interest.

“I don’t question Mary Jo White’s integrity or skill as an attorney,” Mr. Brown said in a statement. “But I do question Washington’s long-held bias towards Wall Street and its inability to find watchdogs outside of the very industry that they are meant to police.”

To avert potential conflicts, Ms. White agreed to recuse herself for one year from most matters involving former clients, though such steps present a potential hindrance to her authority. Ms. White also vowed “as far as can be foreseen” never to return to Debevoise & Plimpton, the firm where she built a lucrative legal practice.

Mr. Brown on Tuesday added that Ms. White “will have plenty of opportunities to prove me wrong. I hope she will.”

The otherwise lopsided vote in favor of Ms. White came as little surprise. At a confirmation hearing last week, she received a friendly reception during two hours of testimony. Even one of the committee’s Republicans, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, declared his intention to support Ms. White.

On Tuesday, the committee’s ranking Republican, Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, touted Ms. White’s experience, saying “I fully support her nomination.”

Republicans took a harsher view on Mr. Cordray, nominated to become director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In January, when the White House named Ms. White to the S.E.C. spot, it reappointed Mr. Cordray to a position he has held for the last year under a temporary recess appointment. The Senate last year declined to confirm him in the face of Republican concerns about the new agency - concerns that persisted on Tuesday.

While Republicans have expressed support for Mr. Cordray, they stand in stark opposition to what they see as his unchecked authority over the bureau. They have vowed to oppose his nomination, or any appointment to run the bureau, unless the White House turns it into a bipartisan panel.

Mr. Crapo explained that his opposition to Mr. Cordray reflected a “broader debate over the structural” setup of the bureau. “Where is the transparency Where is the accountability”

The banking committee’s vote leaves Mr. Cordray’s next step unclear and his agency in limbo. The White House could strike a deal with Republicans, but they have little incentive to do so. For now, Democrats are portraying the Republican opposition as an affront to consumers, leaving conservatives in a politically sensitive position.

Yet Democrats could seek to avert a broader assault on the bureau. Corporate groups are challenging his recess appointment in the courts, an attack that could jeopardize a number of rules that the agency has already enacted.

While Ms. White faces far fewer obstacles to her nomination, significant challenges await her at the S.E.C. The agency, for example, is under Congressional pressure to complete new rules for Wall Street and take aim at financial fraud.

Ms. White, who as the first female United States attorney in Manhattan carried out an aggressive crackdown on terrorism and organized crime, vowed to strike a hard line with Wall Street.

“If confirmed, it will be a high priority throughout my tenure to further strengthen the enforcement function of the S.E.C.,” she said at her confirmation hearing last week. “It must be fair, but it also must be bold and unrelenting,”