WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders Wednesday announced the members of a special panel that will investigate the domestic and global causes of the financial crisis.
Democrats picked former California Treasurer Phil Angelides to chair the 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was created under legislation that was signed into law by President Obama in May.
The panel, which can hold hearings and issue subpoenas for witness’ testimony or documents, is required to report its findings and conclusions to Congress by Dec. 15, 2010.
Democrats, who appointed six of the members, also tapped Brooksley Born, the former chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission; Byron Georgiou, of counsel at the law firm of Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP and president of Georgiou Enterprises; former Florida governor and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham; Heather Murren, a retired Merrill Lynch & Co. managing director and highly ranked analyst who is now co-founder and chairman of the board of the Nevada Cancer Institute; and John Thompson, chief executive office and chairman of Symantec Corp.
In addition, Republican leaders announced their four choices to serve on the panel: former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas, who will be vice chairman of the commission; Keith Hennessey, an economic adviser to President George W. Bush from 2002-2007; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of DHE Consulting LLC, former Congressional Budget Office director, and Arizona Sen. John McCain’s adviser on domestic and economic policy during his presidential campaign last year; and Peter Wallison, the Arthur F. Burns Fellow and co-director for Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Modeled in part on the 9-11 Commission and the Pecora Commission, which investigated the events that led to the Great Depression, the panel will have more than 20 substantive areas of focus. They include the role of fraud and abuse in the financial sector, state and federal regulatory enforcement, tax treatment of financial products, credit rating agencies, lending practices and securitization, corporate governance and executive compensation, federal housing policy, derivatives, government-sponsored enterprises, and short-selling.
