Burt Ely, a banking consultant who testified at a 2001 Senate committee hearing about the failure of Superior Bank, said it had never made sense for Ms. Pritzker to become a nominee. “The confirmation hearing could have been quite ugly for all that would have been dredged up about Superior as well as possibly other Pritzker dealings,” Mr. Ely said Thursday.

Image Penny S. Pritzker, a billionaire who helps manage her familys fortune, said she was not a candidate for commerce secretary. Credit... Hyatt Corp., via Associated Press

In 1988, the Pritzker family and another wealthy investor took over a failing savings and loan and turned it into Superior Bank. Ms. Pritzker was its chairwoman from 1991 to 1994, after which she sat on the board of the bank’s holding company.

In 1993, the bank began a strategy of concentrating on packaging subprime mortgages into securities. At first, the bank flourished. But regulators later discovered accounting irregularities that overstated the value of its assets. The bank was forced to write down huge losses, leaving it without adequate capital in the spring of 2001.

In May 2001, Ms. Pritzker wrote a letter to bank employees assuring them that her family would put more cash in to save the bank, and declaring that “our commitment to subprime lending has never been stronger.” But the Pritzker family did not carry out the plan, and the bank was shut down in July 2001.

A 2002 report by the inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation concluded that “the failure of Superior Bank was directly attributable to bank management and the board of directors ignoring sound risk management principles and failing to adequately oversee Superior operations.”

The Pritzkers agreed in 2001 to pay the F.D.I.C. $460 million over 15 years to cover claims by depositors. Still, more than 1,400 depositors who had more than $100,000 in their savings accounts  the maximum the government then insured  were left short about $10 million, said Clint Krislov, a lawyer for several of them. “Why the Pritzkers wouldn’t do the right thing and just make these people whole for the small amount of money that it would take, I still cannot understand,” he said.