SEC commissioner resigns

WASHINGTON -- Laura Unger, a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced her resignation Tuesday -- leaving the market watchdog agency with only two commissioners out of its full complement of five.

Unger, a Republican attorney named to the SEC by then-President Clinton in October 1997, said she was stepping down this fall to join the private sector.

Unger's move gives President Bush a chance to shape the SEC by naming as many as four commissioners.

She will join a stream of attorneys, accountants and examiners who have left the SEC in recent years for more lucrative jobs outside government -- an exodus that Unger herself recently said had created a "staffing crisis."

Her departure also comes at a time of stock market anxiety following last month's terror attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and amid continued U.S. bombing of targets in Afghanistan.

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