Biden Announces Out Nominees for Futures Commission, Commerce

President Joe Biden Monday announced his intent to nominate two more LGBTQ+ people to federal government posts, in addition to the dozens of out appointees already in his administration, a White House official said.

Christy Goldsmith Romero will be nominated for membership on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Jed Kolko as undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs at the Department of Commerce. Both are subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Goldsmith Romero, who is bisexual, is currently the special inspector general for the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. She was nominated to that position President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2012. In the role, she leads an independent office conducting investigations and audits of federal programs created in response to the financial crisis that began in 2008. Since 2019, she has also been an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and University of Virginia Law School, teaching courses in securities regulation, cryptocurrency regulation, and federal oversight.

She previously served in various roles for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She was counsel to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and Chairman Christopher Cox, and an attorney in the SEC Division of Enforcement. Prior to joining the SEC, she was a litigator at the law firms of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Snell & Wilmer; and Jenner & Block. She also served a federal judicial clerkship. Goldsmith Romero earned a BS in business from Old Dominion University and a JD from Brigham Young University Law School.

Kolko, who is gay, has been chief economist at Indeed.com, the world's largest online jobs site, since 2016. He was chief economist and vice president of analytics at online real estate site Trulia from 2011 to 2015. He is on the board of directors of the National Association for Business Economics and the California Budget and Policy Center.

He has also held research positions at the Public Policy Institute of California, Forrester Research, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (now FHFA), the World Bank, and the Progressive Policy Institute. He incorporates proprietary and public data into research that is accessible and actionable for a wide range of audiences. His research spans employment, housing, local economic development, and technology issues. He earned his AB in social studies and his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University.