Biden Nears Pick for Next F.D.I.C. Chair

Three weeks after President Biden vowed to pick a new leader for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the bank regulator shaken by a vast workplace abuse scandal, a front-runner has emerged: Christy Goldsmith Romero, who sits on the five-member Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to two people with knowledge of the administration’s thinking.

Ms. Goldsmith Romero is a lawyer who, after the financial crisis, spent more than 12 years in an office created by Congress to investigate fraud and other misconduct by banks that received money from the government’s roughly $450 billion crisis rescue package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. From 2011 to 2022, Ms. Goldsmith Romero led the office as the special inspector general for the program.

Her work exposing fraud, which often put her at odds with not only bankers but also some government officials who were concerned about the potential damage it would do to overall public opinion of the bailout, has made her especially appealing for the job of cleaning up the F.D.I.C., said the people, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter.

Mr. Biden has not made a final decision. Ms. Goldsmith Romero’s position as the front-runner for the job was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Goldsmith Romero declined to comment for this article.

Republicans and Democrats both want a new leader for the bank regulator as soon as possible. Managers there were routinely sexually harassing junior employees and working to silence anyone who complained, according to reports last fall by The Wall Street Journal. The fact that Ms. Goldsmith Romero is a woman and a member of the L.G.B.T.Q. community — she is bisexual — is also seen as a plus, the people said, because she may be better able to build trust and restore morale among embittered junior employees.

And there’s another advantage to her candidacy: Ms. Goldsmith Romero has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate — twice. Her most recent confirmation, for the C.F.T.C. post, was in 2022, recently enough that the paperwork she submitted to the Senate as part of her nomination process, as well as the background check she underwent at the time, is likely to still be valid.

In Washington, the land of trial balloons, behind-the-scenes jockeying and temperature-taking, this counts as lightning speed. It’s what the White House and the Senate Banking Committee’s chairman, Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, have been aiming for in the bid to replace Martin Gruenberg, the F.D.I.C.’s current chair, in whom Mr. Brown said he no longer had confidence.

Mr. Brown wanted Mr. Gruenberg to resign, but not before a replacement was secured who could continue to carry out the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda. Had Mr. Gruenberg departed immediately, a Republican, Travis Hill, the F.D.I.C.’s current vice chair, would have become the agency’s leader and could have voted against proposed rules that the administration wants to put in place.

Once the White House announces the president’s choice, which could happen as soon as this week, according to one of the people, Mr. Brown will have to hold a hearing at which the nominee will testify. It could be Ms. Goldsmith Romero, but another woman, Kristin N. Johnson, also a C.F.T.C. commissioner, has also been considered, the two people said. The hearing will be followed by a vote on the nomination by the Banking Committee and then by the Senate as a whole.

Ms. Johnson declined to comment for this article.

It’s a tight squeeze, but that timetable could put a new leader in charge of the troubled bank regulator well before the presidential election in November.