Courtesy of Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy, I’ve just learned that President Bush will be appointing William Kovacic to chair the Federal Trade Commission when current chairwoman Deborah Majoras leaves the agency in June. Kovacic has served as one of five members of the Commission since January 2006, and was confirmed by the Senate to that post. So, despite the Democratic controlled Senate’s on-going reluctance to confirm Bush Administration appointees, Kovacic will not need to be confirmed again in order to rise to the chairman’s position.

Despite naming often disappointing people to head various other federal agencies, Kovacic’s appointment extends President Bush’s streak of appointing genuinely superb FTC chairmen to three in a row. This is also the second time Bush has named a former George Mason School of Law professor to chair the agency (Tim Muris, one of my antitrust professors at Mason, being the first).