White House picks Edith Ramirez to lead FTC

President Barack Obama intends to designate Edith Ramirez as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission.

Ramirez, who joined the FTC as a commissioner in 2010, will replace the agency’s outgoing leader, Jon Leibowitz, a White House official told POLITICO. Her new role will still leave an opening for a third Democratic commission member. The source declined to specify when Commissioner Ramirez officially will be designated chairwoman or who the president might nominate for her current spot. Ultimately, that forthcoming selection would require Senate approval. While at the agency, Commissioner Ramirez has largely tracked closely with her fellow Democrats. Ramirez, for example, joined in FTC reports calling for Do Not Track technology, and she backed the majority conclusion of a two-year antitrust probe of Google — though the commissioner did raise questions about the form in which the FTC obtained some of its concessions. Commissioner Ramirez does boast notable political ties to the Obama administration. Back in 2008, she served as the campaign’s director of Latino outreach, and in 2012 Ramirez donated to the president’s reelection effort. Both Ramirez and the president worked together on the Harvard Law Review in the early 1990s.