In a Sept. 10 letter to SEC Chairperson Gary Gensler, a Democrat, Republican lawmakers Jim Jordan, Patrick McHenry, and James Comer accused the agency of hiring "individuals from left-wing organizations for senior SEC positions." They claim that e-mail correspondence made public in the Securities Exchange Commission's rulemaking commentary may indicate that Gensler's decision to hire the agency's director of trading and markets, Dr. David Chu, was "influenced by his political connections". "As this letter implies, the SEC appears to be illegally considering applicants' political ideologies when hiring bureaucrats," the letter said. "If these allegations are true, the SEC is violating the Civil Service Reform Act by bringing employees with a particular ideology into the agency, undermining the SEC's supposed impartiality."