Democrats pretend that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is its own branch of government.
This fiasco underscores that the CFPB is a rogue agency whose structure is an affront to the Constitution’s separation of powers. A panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in PHH Corp. v. CFPB that the “independence” Mr. Frank so prizes is unconstitutional and that the bureau’s director must be subject to presidential authority.
.. Democrats created an executive-branch agency insulated from Congressional appropriations and presidential control, and now they claim to be able to run it like a branch of government unto itself with a self-sustaining directorship. This is a perversion of constitutional government that the President is right to resist and the courts should reject.
Critics Look for Opening to Fire Head of the CFPB
Richard Cordray is disliked by many for helping build the agency into an aggressive financial regulator
.. A battle is intensifying over the future of Richard Cordray, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as Republicans search for any past transgressions that would allow President-elect Donald Trump to fire him.Mr. Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, is admired by consumer groups and disliked by many GOP lawmakers and financial-industry players for helping build the five-year-old agency into an aggressive financial regulator.
.. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R., Texas), who has led the attack on the CFPB at the House Financial Services Committee, said Mr. Trump’s transition team would study Mr. Cordray’s performance.
.. Mr. Neugebauer, who is seen as a candidate to succeed Mr. Cordray as the next CFPB chief, citing issues such as the alleged pay discrimination and the costs of renovating the agency’s Washington headquarters.
.. Republican lawmakers have a long list of steps aimed at overhauling the CFPB, including turning it into a commission, giving Congress control over its budget and reducing employee compensation by changing its pay scale. Such steps are included in a broad deregulation bill introduced this year by Rep. Jeb Hensarling
.. They added that any attempt to weaken the bureau and undermine its leadership would “risk severe impacts on our communities—including communities of color and low-income families who are most vulnerable to financial abuse.”