The White House said late Monday that President Barack Obama has made two choices for the Federal Trade Commission: a business litigator from Los Angeles who worked on his presidential campaign and a consumer protection regulator who spent most of her career in Vermont.
They are Obama’s first nominees for the commission, which has a central role in antitrust enforcement and consumer protection. Obama nominated Jon Leibowitz for chairman of the commission in February, and the Senate confirmed him, but Leibowitz had already been an FTC commissioner since 2004. The FTC’s other sitting commissioners are appointees of George W. Bush, so the latest nominees would give the five-member board a Democratic majority.
