Rootstrikers is calling on the White House to rebuff Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Chairman Mary Jo White’s ongoing and active efforts to promote Wall Street insiders to fill commissioner vacancies at the SEC.

“By all accounts, Mary Jo White has been spending a great deal of time and energy urging the White House to fill commissioner vacancies at the SEC with Wall Street insiders,” said Kurt Walters, campaign manager of Rootstrikers. “The White House should ignore her pressure and instead nominate strong reformers. Mary Jo White has been an ineffective and soft-on-Wall-Street SEC Chair – emblematic of the revolving door culture that dominates the Commission.The White House should learn from its past mistakes in this next round of nominations.”

Last month, Rootstrikers issued a 67-page report — Mary Jo White, The SEC, And The Revolving Door — which places White’s failures as SEC Chair into the broader perspective of her entire career, a majority of which was spent defending Wall Street and other white collar clients at Debevoise.

Instead of returning again and again to the revolving door, the Administration should view pending and future SEC Commissioner openings as an opportunity to empower leaders from more diverse backgrounds, such as public service, think tanks, or academia, Walters said.

Through its online petitions at www.nomoremaryjos.com and www.nomorewallstreetinsiders.com, Rootstrikers has gathered more than 70,000 signatures urging President Obama to select tough financial reformers for the SEC’s two openings.