The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently dealt a huge defeat to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) through the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which let the agency receive funding from the Federal Reserve, and bypass Congress' approval process. Republicans have been fighting it for years, claiming that the method of operation means they aren't accountable for their actions and are not subject to review.
The Fifth Circuit just ruled that the mechanism for funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was in violation of the Constitution.
“Congress’s decision to abdicate its appropriations power under the Constitution, i.e., to cede its power of the purse to the Bureau, violates the Constitution’s structural separation of powers,” a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case brought by a payday lending group against the CFPB’s 2017 payday lending rule.
Essentially, they were improperly delegating something that was their responsibility to exercise.
“Even among self-funded agencies, the Bureau is unique,” Judge Cory Wilson wrote Wednesday. “The Bureau’s perpetual self-directed, double-insulated funding structure goes a significant step further than that enjoyed by the other agencies on offer.”
Giving authority to bureaucracies with no accountability, which Democrats enjoy doing, including when they're in charge of the bureaucracies, is not a good idea.
It's likely be appealed, therefore it probably isn’t the end of the story.
However, it seemed that the Republicans were already approving of the decision and were preparing to regain their control.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) tweeted: The Fifth Circuit rules that the CFPB, created by Elizabeth Warren via the Dodd-Frank Act, is unconstitutional and must be brought under congressional appropriations. Fortunately, @FinancialCmte has a plan for that.
While this is happening, Warren is throwing a fit, which is good. She tweeted in response, “This is a lawless and reckless decision. @CFPB has returned billions of dollars to Americans by doing its job, and its funding is clearly constitutional. Extreme right-wing judges are throwing into question every rule the CFPB enforces to protect consumers and businesses alike.”
