It’s that time of year when so many are waiting – hearts racing, excitement building, anticipation tingling – over what’s coming soon: Something good, something long-sought-after, something rewarding.

Former Massachusetts Banking Commissioner Thomas Curry is doing just that. But this isn’t about a gift-wrapped box under a Christmas tree. It’s about finally getting the job as the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency.

And yet, Curry can only wait, wait, wait for his prize. Even an anxious school child has a date on the calendar when the waiting will be over. Curry doesn’t even have that.

In July, President Barack Obama nominated Curry to the top post at the OCC – a nomination that came just a few weeks after that of Martin Gruenwald to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. After two-and-a-half years in office, Obama was finally looking to put his own stamp on the nation’s banking regulatory agencies. And, in typical fashion, he was looking for moderates.

The OCC is currently a crucible of contention. It’s the regulatory body for the nation’s largest banks, and all federally-chartered institutions. For years, it’s been flexing its muscle, arguing that its federal status and federal rules pre-empt state regulation.

But critics argue that it was only state regulators who had any backbone in terms of limiting unfettered growth of financial institutions, and that the OCC’s actions have only served to destabilize the banking industry. The Dodd-Frank Act allegedly (in legislation, it’s always “allegedly,” until a court rules) gives more authority to state regulators. But the OCC hasn’t backed down from its stand that its rule-making supersedes state authority.

Thomas In The Middle

Curry was a good pick by Obama. He has substantial bona fides as a state’s rights advocate. He served five Massachusetts governors as the Commissioner of Banks from 1990 to 1991 and from 1995 to 2003. He was acting commissioner from February 1994 to June 1995. In 2000-2001, Curry was chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, an organization dedicated to bolstering state bank-regulatory authority.

In 2004, Curry began a six-year term on the Board of Directors of the FDIC, a post for which he needed, and gained, confirmation by the Republican-led Senate. Having confirmed him once for a national banking post, the GOP would have a harder time arguing against him for the OCC nomination.

And Curry hasn’t given them anything to argue against. Despite his background in state regulation, during hearings earlier this year, he made it clear that he supports the OCC’s defense of federal pre-emption.

“I understand that the actual language of Dodd-Frank is a matter of some controversy between interested parties,” Curry told Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking member on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. “Generally speaking, I think the principle is clear from the Constitution that the federal law supersedes conflicting state law, and that’s an important concept to remember.”

When Shelby asks Curry if that’s the OCC’s position, and if it would be his at the OCC, Curry’s blunt. “I believe so. It’s a federal agency.” The banking committee approved Curry’s nomination on Sept. 8.

For all that, though, Shelby has been holding up any full Senate vote on Curry’s nomination, as well as Gruenwald’s. Earlier this fall, Obama also nominated Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig to the FDIC’s number two spot. With that, Shelby has said it’s time to vote on all three as a package – a move local bank associations attribute to his desire to show some movement, since he’s dug in against the nomination for a director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Shelby promised that he’d bring all three to a vote after the Thanksgiving recess. But two weeks since, there’s still no movement.

Meanwhile, Curry waits, his present so tantalizingly close, but still so unattainable.

And the U.S. Senate keeps the rest of the country dangling, too, as it sits without action on leadership for our important bank regulatory agencies. It’s time to give the country a gift of action. It’s time to finalize these nominations.