The CFPB Survives

[babylonsister]

The CFPB Survives
In a blockbuster ruling, the D.C. Circuit reminds the Trump administration that real liberty isn’t limited to corporations.

By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
Jan 31, 20185:19 PM


In a rebuke to the Trump administration’s deregulatory ambitions, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau complies with the Constitution. Many Republicans and attorneys in the financial industry had claimed a key provision of the CFPB—which provides for an independent director with a five-year term in office, subject to removal by the president only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office”—unconstitutionally strips the president of his constitutional powers as set forth in Article II. In a 7–3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed.

Wednesday’s decision marks a forceful rebuke to the Trump administration’s alarmingly broad theory of executive power. Since taking office, Donald Trump has acted as though every employee of the federal government must carry out his agenda or risk termination. His judicial appointees have translated this vision into legal principles that bolster the president’s authority to do whatever he wants. The D.C. Circuit flatly rebuffed this view, shielding a vital agency from the president’s partisan whims. In doing so, it rejected an artificial conception of constitutional liberty in favor of a pragmatic and fundamentally democratic jurisprudence.

more...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/the-d-c-circuits-ruling-to-protect-the-cfpb-is-a-massive-rebuke-to-trump.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. The Slate article is great! Thank you, my dear babylonsister. n/t

[babylonsister]

2. Hi, Peggy! You're very welcome!