Republican lawmakers file amicus brief in case against CFPB funding structure

A group of 132 Republican lawmakers in Congress are filing an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in a case involving the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding structure.

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The case in question is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, et al., v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited, et al. The brief urges the Supreme Court to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision that the CFPB’s funding structure is unconstitutional, and that the bureau’s funding should instead be subject to congressional appropriations.

“The Court need not determine which particular aspect of the CFPB’s funding scheme is the most problematic. This is the easy case. The CFPB ‘is in an entirely different league’ from other entities when it comes to its insulation from Congress… to the point that the CFPB currently operates as ‘a sort of junior-varsity Congress’ setting its own funding levels in perpetuity… Such insulation means that Congress itself is not determining the CFPB’s funding. The Court should affirm the judgment below, which will return the matter of the CFPB’s funding to the normal political and legislative channels, as Article I and the Appropriations Clause require,” the brief states.

Among the 132 lawmakers who signed the brief are U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), chair of the House Financial Services Committee; U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.