Appeals Court Ruling Finds CFPB Funding Mechanism Unconstitutional
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a late afternoon ruling in the case of the Community Financial Services Association (CFSA) v. the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that CFPB’s “funding apparatus cannot be reconciled with the Appropriations Clause and the clause’s underpinning, the constitutional separation of powers.”
In response, Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
The Fifth Circuit’s dangerously misguided and outrageous decision jeopardizes the most important consumer protection agency created in the last 50 years and the rules, guidelines, enforcement actions and consumer education that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued and undertaken.
The Fifth Circuit’s decision ignores long-established and long-accepted practice of funding financial regulatory agencies, and the prior review of many other courts, in order to decree that the funding mechanism of the CFPB is unconstitutional.
If upheld, this decision is a gift to scammers and rip-off artists, payday lenders and Big Banks. If it stands, it will go down in history as one of the most anti-consumer court rulings in history.
It must be reversed.