Consumer Law & Policy Blog

House Subcommittee Votes Today on Proposals to Cripple CFPB

The House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit is scheduled to consider a number of bills today that would gut the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Among other things, the Subcommittee will consider HR 1121, which would turn the Bureau into a five-member commission, and HR 1315, which would allow the Financial Stability Oversight Council to veto CFPB rules by a simple majority. Consumer groups have, of course, come out strongly against these proposals. 

Keating Backtracks

MarketWatch has the story here.  Asked if he would oppose Warren if she were nominated, [Keating] said: "I don't think so." He added that it all depends on how the Senate confirmation process would proceed. "It's pretty hard to be definitive," Keating told Dow Jones.

 

More coverage of AT&T v. Concepcion

Despite the jam-packed news cycle -- the royal wedding, the birth certificate, tornadoes, Osama bin Laden -- there's been a flood of outraged coverage of the Supreme Court's decision in AT&T v. Concepcion. SCOTUSblog rounded up some of the coverage here and here.  Here's a small sampling:

• Byron Williams, While you were away, the Supreme Court did it again, San Jose Mercury News
• Nan Aron, The Corporate Court Does It Again, Huffington Post
• Sacramento Bee editorial
• San Francisco Chronicle editorial
• Times-Union editorial
• Kansas-City Star editorial
• Steve Berk, Consumers Lose Again, The Corporate Observer
• Jeff Gelles, Supreme Court takes a big step toward shutting consumers out, Philadelphia Inquirer
• Nathan Koppel, Will Federal Consumer Bureau Ride to the Rescue of Class Actions?, The Wall Street Journal
• Lawrence Cunningham,SCOTUS AT&T Opinion Par for the Rhetorical Course, Concurring Opinions

American Bankers Association Supports Warren Nomination

Breaking news from the American Banker:

Frank Keating, the head of the American Bankers Association, said Tuesday he would back Elizabeth Warren as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, if nominated by the president.

"If she is the nominee, we would be fully support of her," said Keating, who, like Warren, hails from Oklahoma.

Keating, a former governor of Oklahoma, joined the ABA as president and chief executive on Jan. 1. Speaking to reporters after his inaugural speech before the Women in Housing and Finance, Keating made clear he would not object to any nomination made by the president to head the new agency, including Warren's, even if at times they might disagree over certain issues.

Timing of a nomination by the president, which is highly anticipated, could not be any better given the political capital he gained after the death of Osama bin Laden.

"Because of that lift to the president it may well be that he does decide to nominate her," said Keating. "She's very bright, very capable."

 

"A knife in the ribs"

On the Daily Show last week, before the big news from Pakistan sucked up all the media oxygen, Elizabeth Warren told Jon Stewart that opponents of financial reform were attempting to “stick a knife in the ribs” of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Right now there are bills pending in Congress to delay the agency, to defund the agency, to defang the agency and," she said, "to kill the agency outright before it is able to take one step on behalf of middle class families.”  At the Daily show website, you can watch an extended online version of the interview here.