NEW YORK — Following Janet Yellen’s confirmation as Treasury Secretary, Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Joyce Beatty continued to put pressure on President Biden to appoint Mehrsa Baradaran, an expert on the racial wealth gap, to the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.

In a letter sent Tuesday night, Bowman and Beatty strongly encouraged Biden to select Baradaran, who has devoted her career to developing innovative policies to address the racial wealth gap, such as granting parts of abandoned properties in target cities to qualified residents and using the post office to provide banking services to the underbanked. Baradaran is widely seen by progressives as the best choice for the post during a pandemic which has disproportionately ravaged the health and financial circumstances of minority communities and worsened racial inequities.

“The choice is clear: in a moment of national crisis, during which economic and racial inequalities have been accelerated by a rapidly evolving pandemic, we need a chief banking regulator whose values are fully aligned with working people,” Bowman and Beatty wrote in the letter. “Mehrsa Baradaran’s lifework has been committed to ensuring that all American families have access to wealth-building; this will be incredibly important as we work to build back better our country.”

Biden is reportedly considering Michael Barr, a law professor and former Obama administration official who has deep ties to fintech and cryptocurrency, for the position. 

Click here to read the full text of the letter.