Back in January, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York commented that he believed it made sense to physically move the staff of the SEC’s Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) from Washington, DC to New York.  He stated then that OCIE should be moved to New York because “it makes no sense to have cops who are patrolling their beat from hundreds of miles away.”  He added that “at the same time, moving these functions to New York will improve the SEC’s ability to hire top professionals with the skills and experience to detect complex financial frauds” and that the SEC needs more “professionals in place who understand how markets work.”

In a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Schumer took that idea a step further, arguing that OCIE, the Enforcement Division, and… wait for it… the entire SEC should move to New York to be closer to the Wall Street firms:

“When the team is having lunch in Phoenix, they don’t pick up as much information as when they do in downtown Manhattan,” Schumer said. The enforcement unit, or even the entire SEC, should also relocate to the city, he said.

Sen. Schumer also pressed hard for SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami to name a permanent leader for the New York Regional Office.  Khuzami stated that the SEC is in the “final stages” of hiring a new director for the New York City office.