SEC Commissioner Gallagher Says Goodbye
Commentary by Steven Lofchie
Daniel M. Gallagher issued his final statement as Commissioner on his "bittersweet" departure from the SEC. He thanked the staff and noted that he expects to remain involved in the important policy debates facing the U.S. capital markets in the years to come," including through his lecture series with the Securities Law Program at Catholic University Columbus School of Law.
Commentary
Commissioner Gallagher was a thoughtful and serious regulator at the SEC. He took very seriously his responsibility to implement financial regulations that would both protect investors and serve the economy. He was a constant but reasoned critic of the regulatory philosophy that simply argues for "more" (the more regulations, the better). Perhaps the most powerful argument he made against this self-defeating approach was a visual demonstration, represented in a mind-boggling chart, of the number of rules that were adopted in light of Dodd-Frank (and of course there are many more still to come). There is a link to this graphic (which we call the "Gallagher Egg") in this previous Cabinet article.