WASHINGTON – The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to review 11 Bush administration nominations next week, including Michael Fryzel, who would succeed JoAnn Johnson as NCUA Chairman.
The NCUA nomination has languished in the panel since early December, as the Democrats in control of the Senate have held up hundreds of Bush appointments in hopes the next President will be a Democrat and fill those government positions.
The committee’s endorsement is critical to Fryzel, a former credit union regulator in Illinois, getting approved by the full Senate. But one credit union lobbyist, who noted the Democratically controlled Senate’s intentions to hold up Bush nominations, cautioned that an endorsement by the panel does not necessarily mean Fryzel will be seated at NCUA. “A hearing does not necessarily mean a vote,” the lobbyist told The Credit Union Journal yesterday.
If confirmed, Fryzel would retain the two-to-one Republican advantage on the three-person NCUA Board. Johnson, a Republican, has been serving as a so-called “holdover” since her six-year term expired last August. Rodney Hood also is a Republican, while Gigi Hyland is a Democrat.
Because of the large number of nominations being reviewed at next Tuesday’s hearing, Fryzel is not expected to get many questions. Among the other nominees being reviewed are candidates for Securities and Exchange Commission, President’s Council on Economic Advisors, Housing and Urban Development and an assistant secretary of Treasury.
Fryzel, a partner in the Chicago firm of Kane, Obbish, Propes & Garippo, has long credit union ties and was a protégé of former NCUA Chairman Ed Callahan. He was promoted to the head of the Illinois Department of Financial Institutions, which regulates state chartered credit unions, in 1982, succeeding Callahan when Callahan went to Washington to chair the NCUA Board.
Fryzel has served on the Illinois CU Advisory Board for the last 17 years and has represented numerous credit unions in his legal practice. He also was in the running for the NCUA Board seat eventually given to Rodney Hood four years ago.
Johnson, who was an Iowa state senator and chairman of the state’s Bush/Cheney campaign, was appointed to the NCUA Board in 2002, then designated chairman in 2004, succeeding Dennis Dollar.
