Trump Picks Two for CFTC as Prediction Market Brawl Escalates

President Donald Trump has nominated Nathan Anonick and Matthew Rowland to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, whose five-seat commission has sat four members short for over a year. The White House sent the names to the Senate on Nov. 12, alongside two Securities and Exchange Commission picks, Steven Levine and Kristin Johnson, a former CFTC commissioner.

Anonick, a Republican from Virginia, is counsel to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman and joined that committee in 2022 to manage a portfolio covering cryptocurrencies, futures markets and derivatives, per a 2023 committee announcement. He previously worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Rowland, a Democrat from the District of Columbia, has been at the CFTC since 2015, including as an enforcement attorney, and worked on the committee's Democratic staff in 2023 and 2024, NEXTPredict reported. His nomination covers the remainder of a term expiring April 13, 2028, the seat formerly held by Summer Mersinger; Anonick's term runs to June 19, 2031, replacing former Chairman Rostin Behnam.

Chairman Michael Selig, sworn in Dec. 22, 2025 after Caroline Pham served as sole commissioner from September 2025, has pushed the prediction market agenda by himself. The agency withdrew a Biden-era proposal to ban some political and sports event contracts, proposed prediction market rules in June and in October moved to classify sports and other event contracts as swaps. It has sued New York, Utah and other states over gambling law enforcement against federally regulated exchanges, and on Nov. 5 told exchanges to drop state geoblocks within 30 days or explain why not. Asked at an April House hearing not to finalize rules while serving alone, Selig told lawmakers, according to Politico, that he could not commit to not doing the job he was appointed to do.

The nominations now sit with the Senate Agriculture Committee, which had no hearing scheduled as of Friday. The Senate Banking Committee has set a Nov. 19 hearing for the SEC nominees. Republicans lose Senate control in January after last week's midterm elections, and under Senate rules any nomination unconfirmed before a session ends can be sent back to the president.

States are escalating in the meantime. On Thursday, a Louisiana judge ordered Kalshi, Polymarket U.S. and others to stop offering event contracts in the state without a license and to geofence it, directly conflicting with the CFTC's Nov. 5 guidance. Earlier in the week, a federal judge in Manhattan wrote that the commission's emergency order shielding Kalshi, in the source's words, smacks of a collusive effort between the regulator and the company.

Selig backed his new picks publicly. He called Anonick and Rowland two strong bipartisan choices for CFTC commissioners and said he looked forward to working with each of them once the Senate confirms them.