James M. Reum Is Nominated for Seat on SEC

President Bush has nominated Chicago securities lawyer James M. Reum for a seat on the Securities and Exchange Commission, the White House and Reum’s law firm said.

The nomination for a five-year term to the five-member independent regulatory agency, announced Wednesday, is subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Reum, 45, is a senior securities partner with the law firm Hopkins & Sutter, which has offices in Chicago, Washington and Dallas.

If confirmed, Reum would replace Edward Fleischman, a deregulation advocate and Reagan Administration appointee who resigned March 31 after increasingly bitter clashes with SEC Chairman Richard Breeden over the agency’s direction.

Fleischman complained that the SEC, which polices the nation’s stock and bond markets, seemed bent on gaining more regulatory power instead of less since Breeden became chairman in 1989.

Reum, who joined Hopkins & Sutter in 1979, has specialized in securities work, corporate and international finance, mergers and acquisitions and banking. Reum worked for the Wall Street law firm Davis, Polk, & Wardell before 1979.

Reum worked as a fund raiser and advance man for Bush in 1980, 1984 and 1988. He served as an associate counsel to the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 during impeachment proceedings against then-President Richard M. Nixon.

Reum graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972.