When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure as unconstitutional last month, it prescribed a fix that raised the stakes of this year’s presidential election, the National Law Journal reported yesterday. Unsettled by what it called the “massive, unchecked power” wielded by the young agency’s director, the panel of judges called for allowing the president to remove the CFPB’s leader at will, rather than “for cause.” President-elect Donald Trump spells trouble for the consumer bureau. Lacking a filibuster-proof Republican majority in the Senate, any move to dismantle or otherwise defang the 5-year-old agency will likely prove an uphill climb on Capitol Hill. Trump could make his mark on the agency by installing new leadership — a replacement for CFPB Director Richard Cordray. The CFPB is expected to appeal the three-judge panel’s decision to the full D.C. Circuit, but a question hanging over the transition is whether Trump will still try to replace Cordray — either by invoking the D.C. Circuit panel’s decision or finding cause to fire him. The House Financial Services Committee has led the charge against the CFPB, passing a bill, the Choice Act, that calls for limiting the agency’s power to penalize financial firms for “abusive practices” and substituting a bipartisan five-member commission for the single-director structure.
