After operating many months without a full complement of commissioners, the Securities and Exchange Commission may finally be closer to filling its empty seats.

On Oct. 24, the Senate Banking Committee will meet in open session to conduct a hearing on President Trump’s nominations of Hester Peirce, of Ohio, and Robert Jackson, Jr., of New York, to be members of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jackson is nominated for the remainder of a five-year term expiring June 5, 2019. He is a professor at Columbia Law School and director of its program on corporate law and policy. His academic work focuses on corporate governance and the use of advanced data science techniques to improve transparency in securities markets.

A White House statement notes that Jackson’s career has spanned the public and private sectors. He served as a senior advisor at the Department of the Treasury during the financial crisis, assisting Kenneth Feinberg in his work as special master for TARP Executive Compensation, and previously worked as a lawyer in private practice.

Jackson holds two bachelor's degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School of Business, a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Born in the Bronx, New York, he currently lives in New York City.

Jackson may be best known to SEC watchers as one of the professors who spearheaded a campaign, and petition for rulemaking, seeking the disclosure of political contributions by public companies.

On July 18, President Trump announced the nomination of Peirce to serve for the remainder of a five-year term expiring June 5, 2020.

Peirce is a Senior Research Fellow at the Financial Markets Working Group at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Previously, she served on the staff of the Senate Banking Committee, and also as a staff attorney with the SEC from 2000 to 2008.

Peirce is the editor and a contributor to the 2012 book, Dodd-Frank: What It Does and Why It’s Flawed. The book concludes that Dodd-Frank "not only fails to achieve many of its stated goals, it also creates dangerous regulatory pathologies that could lay the groundwork for the next crisis."

Peirce was an unconfirmed nominee to fill the same post by President Obama back in October 2015. Neither she, nor fellow nominee Lisa Fairfax, a Democrat and law professor at the George Washington University Law School, garnered the full and necessary support of Senate Democrats.