A chance for change at the SEC

In the two years that Mary Jo White has been chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, she has built a record as a deal-maker willing to reach out to Republicans to get things done — even if it means disappointing the Democrats.

“Even though you are a political appointee, either in my job or my fellow commissioners’ jobs, politics really doesn’t come with you,” Ms. White told Bloomberg News on her one-year anniversary as chairwoman.

Unfortunately, that sentiment doesn’t appear to have filtered down to her fellow commissioners, as evidenced by both the high number of 3-2 votes she has weathered and the ear-splitting rhetoric from some commissioners who have lost sight of the fact that the agency exists to serve investors, not their political party or agenda.

LOST SIGHT OF MISSION

So the news last week that Daniel Gallagher, one of the two Republicans on the commission, plans to resign this year, coupled with the fact that Luis Aguilar, one of the two Democratic commissioners, will be replaced when his term expires next month, brings with it the prospect of transformation at the agency.

To be sure, the SEC always has two Republican and two Democratic commissioners, with the chair most often from the same party as the president who nominated him or her. But until recently, the poisonous and progress-killing partisanship that has infected Washington had not seeped into the SEC.

So it is with hope of a new era that we anticipate two new SEC commissioners.