Blog de Dunlap: re: The case against the CFPB

Danielle, today the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case to determine whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional. (Spoiler alert: It is.)

This hearing also falls on a significant anniversary: 15 years ago today was when Congress bailed out the big banks responsible for crashing our economy and throwing millions of Americans out of work. In the aftermath, I fought to hold these big banks accountable and protect consumers from predatory financial institutions, and we created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The agency was designed to protect consumers from the tricks and traps of financial institutions and corporations. It eliminates junk fees, cracks down on payday lenders who prey on military families, and watches out for first-time homebuyers scammed by mortgage lenders — just to name a few services. So far, the agency has returned over $17 billion to Americans who have been cheated.

So of course financial institutions have an issue with it — and Wall Street banks and payday lenders are hoping the Supreme Court will gut it through this case.

My colleagues Sherrod Brown and Raphael Warnock and I put together an explainer video on the case. You can watch it here — and please share it to help get the word out about what's going on.

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Basically, these special interests that the agency protects consumers from are asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the CFPB's independent funding structure. That would leave funding up to Congress every year, and at the whim of whoever the heck is going to lead Republicans' extremist majorities.

If the Supreme Court says that Congress doesn't have the power to set up government agencies and laws without going through appropriations, other programs like Social Security and Medicare — that are funded the same way the CFPB is — could also be at risk. The implications of this case could echo through the lives of every person in the country.

Look, the only option is for the Supreme Court to outright reject this bogus challenge and affirm the constitutionality of the CFPB. And I'm going to keep fighting for this.

Alongside this grassroots team and a terrific array of labor unions, civil rights groups, consumer advocates, and more, I fought tooth and nail to turn the CFPB from an unlikely idea to a concrete, consumer-protecting reality. And I won't stop fighting to keep it that way.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth