WASHINGTON–Just one day after NCUA Chairman Kyle Hauptman made some broad references to a new board coming to the agency, his successor will have a nomination meeting today before the Senate.
John Crews will have his nomination considered by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. As the CU Daily reported earlier, committee rules prohibit a vote immediately, but sources indicated the Senate is seeking to expedite the process in order to get a July vote on Crews’ nomination. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Depending on the timing of the vote on Crews’ nomination, the NCUA board meeting on Wednesday may be the last to be overseen by Hauptman, whose term expired in August 2025. Crews’ term would run through August 2031. Hauptman has been waiting to exit after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced he has been appointed to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)., saying he would remain at NCUA until his successor could be confirmed.
‘Normalcy’ Coming
During the Wednesday board meeting (the CU Daily has coverage here, here and here), Hauptman—who has been serving as a one-man NCUA board since fellow board members Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka were fired by President Trump in April 2025—predicted “normalcy” will return to the agency—although not soon.
He said he expects that a full board could be “sitting at the table” by Christmas of 2027. Hauptman made the reference after noting the quick 45-minute run time of Wednesday’s board meeting, joking that the meeting included just one-person “babbling,” rather than three.
About Today’s Hearing
In addition to Crews, the hearing will also include other nominees, including:
- Dr. Christopher Phelan to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Executive Office of the President
- Jeffrey Ledbetter to be Inspector General, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Additional witnesses may also be added.
History on the Hill
Crews is the assistant secretary for financial institutions policy in the Treasury department. Crews was appointed to the position in mid-2025 and has a long history in Washington. Prior to joining the Treasury Department, he served as a policy advisor to Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), where he covered economic and financial services policy, and prior to that was the policy director of the Senate Banking Committee.
During the first Trump Administration, Crews has served on the National Economic Council as a special assistant to the President for Economic Policy.
One Person Board—Or Three?
Complicating matters even further is that Crews may also be a one-person board—or, as a Republican appointee, he could be the minority member on a three-person board.
Credit unions, and much of Washington and the country, are awaiting a Supreme Court ruling in the long-awaited case of Slaughter v. Trump, which could have broad implications for independent federal agencies, including the NCUA and litigation over the firing of members of its board.
In March 2025, President Donald Trump fired Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without citing a statutory cause, such as inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance, as has historically been required under the FTC Act. Slaughter filed suit, arguing her firing was unlawful, and a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in her favor, declaring the removal unlawful and ordering her reinstatement.
As the CU Daily has reported, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted a stay pausing her reinstatement while the case proceeded. The court heard arguments in the case in late 2025.
The Central Issue
The central issue before the court is whether Congress’ statutory limits on a president’s ability to remove leaders of multi-member independent agencies violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. The case directly challenges the 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent established in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), which upheld the constitutionality of independent agencies and their removal protections.
The ruling is also expected to affect the lawsuit filed by former NCUA board members and Democratic appointees Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, who were fired by Trump in April 2025 and were briefly reinstated before another court removed them. Their case raises arguments similar to those in Slaughter.
Fallout for NCUA Case
As the CU Daily previously reported, Ann Petros, vice president of policy engagement and credit union operations at America’s Credit Unions, said the Supreme Court ruling is “likely to result in the D.C. Circuit reevaluating” the lawsuit brought by Harper and Otsuka.
Should Harper and Otsuka be returned to their positions, it would create a 2-1 Democratic majority on the board.
