The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found the CFPB’s structure to be unconstitutional but severed the “for cause” removal provision from the rest of the Dodd-Frank Act. Practically, the CFPB Director may be removed by the President at will.

CUNA’s President/CEO Jim Nussle shared his disappointment through the following statement:  

“We are disappointed in the court’s decision. Proponents of the Bureau sought to create an independent consumer regulator but the entity they established was independent only of the minority political party. Today’s ruling cements the Bureau’s political dependence and subjects consumers and covered entities to wildly severe swings on the regulatory pendulum. Whichever party holds the White House won today; everyone else lost. We call on Congress to put consumer protection ahead of political whimsy by creating a bipartisan multimember commission that can create tempered, transparent policies at the Bureau.”  

Under the Court’s ruling, the CFPB’s single director serves at the pleasure of the president, leaving in place a leadership structure that places consumer protection behind the political ideology of the ruling party. CUNA has long advocated for the agency to reflect the structure laid out in the initial drafts of the Dodd Frank Act, which laid out a bipartisan multimember commission.  

CUNA filed an amicus brief in this case calling on the Court to force Congress to address this issue, and most recently supported efforts in the House and Senate that would create this commission structure within the CFPB.