Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission bid thanks and farewell to resigning Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher. Commissioner Gallagher served four years as a Republican minority member of the Commission, years in which the SEC’s focus was the implementation of the misbegotten Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Throughout his tenure, he was a forceful critic of Dodd-Frank, both for its substance and for its politicizing effect on the SEC. As the SEC worked to implement regulations required under Dodd-Frank, he was a strong proponent of regulatory restraint and endeavored to mitigate the potentially negative impact of Dodd-Frank-mandated rulemaking on the financial markets. A champion of free and efficient markets, he promoted capital formation and the growth of small businesses. He helped to curtail the outsized influence of proxy advisors and called for modernizing the rules relating to transfer agents. With well-crafted and charismatically delivered speeches, he energized debates and will be recalled as an effective advocate for market-oriented reform.
Commissioner Gallagher’s public victories on key issues, and his prolific writings and speeches, do not represent the full extent of his legacy. As a minority voice in a highly politicized era, many of his successes have been and will remain largely invisible. Nonetheless, his influence was significant with respect to actions that the SEC did not take, elements that were omitted from SEC rulemaking, and issues that did not take priority on the SEC’s agenda. In a highly challenging regulatory and economic environment, Commissioner Gallagher’s work to improve the capital markets on behalf of the nation has been invaluable.
