Nine Republican senators wrote Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting director Mick Mulvaney to say they intended to repeal any rules issued by Deputy Director Leandra English.
“Unfortunately, this rogue employee is trying to follow former CFPB Director Cordray's example and run the agency as an unaccountable fourth branch of government,” the senators wrote. “Should this employee prevail in court and successfully serve as acting director, we would support legislative efforts to invalidate any new rules finalized by the agency during this employee’s service, including the use of the Congressional Review Act. We would also fight to ensure that Congress defunds the CFPB until this employee has relinquished control of the CFPB.”
In a press release accompanying the letter, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said the government has three branches, not four.
“King Richard can’t leave to run for office and handpick his successor without any say from the American people. There’s no clause anywhere in the Constitution like that,” Sasse wrote.
Other senators who signed the letter were Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.).
The senators congratulated Mulvaney on his appointment, and vilified English for disregarding President Donald Trump’s statutory authority to make it.
“We write because we are disturbed by efforts of a rogue CFPB employee to serve as acting director of your agency despite President Trump’s designation of you as acting CFPB director, the letter stated. “This effort to stay on as acting director is especially concerning because more is at stake than interpreting the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Successful control of the CFPB would give this employee – as the single head of an independent agency who refuses to answer to the president – great, unconstitutional power to shape regulatory policy.”
The letter cited the PHH Corp. v. CFPB case as evidence of the concentrated power in the CFPB director’s hands.
“These recent events are a clear demonstration of the dangers of the CFPB’s unconstitutional, unaccountable structure,” the letter stated. “We believe in protecting consumers but disagreement about how to do so must not come at the expense of our constitution.”