Vocal Trump critic Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, has earned House Democrats' nomination to chair the House Committee on Financial Services.

The 80 year old who has served in Congress since 1991, warned that “appropriate oversight” of the Trump administration would be a priority for the panel in the next Congress.

“I am committed to creating opportunities, ensuring fairness, and protecting the economic well-being of all Americans,” Waters said in a statement Monday evening acknowledging the nomination by the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

Waters, the odds-on favorite of her party to lead the committee, has been nominated by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committees and must be approved by the full Democratic caucus.

She vowed as chairwoman that she would “prioritize protecting consumers and investors from abusive financial practices” and would ensure “strong safeguards are in place to prevent another financial crisis.” She also promised to bolster affordable housing opportunities and would promote diversity and inclusion in the financial services sector.

Waters, who represents California’s 43rd District which includes Los Angeles, is vowing to keep the Trump administration accountable.

“Appropriate oversight of the Trump Administration and the regulatory agencies under the Committee's jurisdiction will also be an important responsibility for the Committee,” Waters said. “Of particular importance is ensuring that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not dismantled by Trump’s appointees. This critical agency must be allowed to resume its work of protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive or abusive practices without interference from the Trump Administration.”

Waters is currently serving as the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, a spot she’s held since 2013.

“As chair, Maxine Waters will be a force to be reckoned with, but the driving question is will she able to send bills to the Senate that can be passed and then signed into law by President Trump” asked Duane Thompson, a senior policy analyst for fiduciary training and technology firm Fi360.  “I would say there is always a small chance.  In the minority, you are in attack mode.  In the majority, you can either send messaging bills to the other chamber that have no chance of passing but that appeal to your constituencies, or try for something that is bipartisan and has a chance to become law.

“As a committee chair, Ms. Waters can always get headlines by bringing in a wayward financial services executive to a hearing to be grilled over the latest scandal,” said Thompson, former managing director of the FPA’s Washington, D.C. advocacy office. “but her options are limited in a divided Congress. If you are an advisor concerned about changes to market conduct rules, I would focus my attention on the SEC and the states, not on Capitol Hill.

Waters takes the reins of the Financial Services Committee from current Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). Her focus has been much more investor centric, which contrasts sharply with Hensarling’s free market ideology. While Hensarling has attempted to dismantle regulation, including some of the Dodd-Frank Act, Waters is an advocate of Dodd-Frank and a supporter of the U.S. Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which would have increased protections for investors who roll over IRAs. The rule was gutted in court earlier this year.

“She’s as far left as Jeb is right,” said one veteran lobbyist who requested anonymity. “A lot of business folks don’t like her because she’s pretty left wing, advocates for the poorer people in her district and talks about confronting Republicans in public places. But she has a pretty good financial services staff. They’ll be the folks doing the hard work.”

Waters herself has been the subject of a House ethics investigation concerning her husband’s investment in a California bank. The scandal still dogs the lawmaker, especially on social media.

Waters was cleared of three charges that she and her grandson improperly used her position to “preserve her husband’s investment in OneUnited Bank.” Waters' was alleged to have taken extraordinary and unethical steps to ensure that taxpayers’ funds shored up her husband’s investment in the nation’s largest black-owned bank, which had tumbled from $350,000 to $175,000 after the mortgage banking crash. Waters investment, which was approximately 15 percent of the couple’s net worth in 2010, would have been worthless if Waters hadn’t succeeded in passing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bill that allowed the Treasury Department to provide OneUnited with $50 million in assistance to cover expected losses from the collapse of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Waters also arranged for meetings between OneUnited executives and key Treasury officials. The ethic’s case against Waters alleged she repeatedly acted on OneUnited’s behalf, despite warnings from then House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

Waters has been a fairly vocal critic of the SEC's best-interest conduct proposal. She grilled SEC Chairman Jay Clayton during an oversight hearing in June, making it clear she believes the proposal falls short because it does not impose a fiduciary standard on brokers who offer investment advice.

"Don't you agree that it would be far simpler and clearer for investors to subject any broker that holds himself out as providing investment advice… to the [Investment] Advisers Act fiduciary duty and require them to put their clients' interests first?” Waters asked.

The 14-term congresswoman also took issue with the rule's limited prohibition on brokers’ use of the term "advisor" or "adviser," arguing that the proposal still leaves open a universe of other titles that give investors the mistaken impression that a broker is acting under the highest standards of conduct.

Clayton argued at the time that the business models and client relationships of investment advisors and broker-dealers are fundamentally different, making distinct but comparable regulatory frameworks appropriate.

While critics of the proposal can look forward to a series of fiery hearings under Water’s leadership, legislative changes to the SEC’s proposal are unlikely since the GOP is still holding the the majority in the Senate.

“Does the chair of the House Financial Services Committee have some authority? I’d say yes from the bully pulpit point of view, certainly,” said David Tittsworth, president and CEO of the Investment Adviser Association (IAA) for 18 years. “But absent a full legislative change…a statutory change that tells the SEC to do something different is very unlikely,” added Tittsworth, counsel in Ropes & Gray’s Washington, D.C. investment management practice.