Briefly

Harvey Goldschmid, a former Securities and Exchange Commission general counsel, on Monday won backing from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) for nomination to a Democratic seat on the SEC.

Goldschmid, 61, a Columbia University law professor, was the SEC’s top lawyer from July 1998 to January 2000. Goldschmid was the architect of Regulation Fair Disclosure, which forbids companies to give stock analysts first word about earnings or other important news.

Goldschmid could give Democrats a legal and philosophical counterweight to SEC Chairman Harvey L. Pitt, a Republican, as the agency considers new accounting rules after Enron Corp.’s collapse, analysts said.

By law, only three of the five SEC seats can be occupied by one political party.