Elizabeth Warren Slams Republicans For Trying To Weaken Consumer Finance Protections

[ProSense]

Elizabeth Warren Slams Republicans For Trying To Weaken Consumer Finance Protections

By Aviva Shen

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rebuked Republicans for blocking Richard Cordray’s confirmation as director of her brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. After a bitter confirmation fight in 2011, President Obama bypassed the Senate using a recess appointment to grant Cordray a temporary term until the end of 2013. Republicans are threatening to filibuster him this time around unless the CFPB is drastically restructured.

Warren declined to question Cordray, who has testified a dozen times. She then directed scrutiny to her Republican colleagues, calling them out for using her former lieutenant’s confirmation as an excuse to undermine the Bureau:

What I want to know is why every banking regulator since the Civil War has been funded outside the appropriations process — but unlike the consumer agency, no one in the U.S. Senate has held up confirmation of their directors demanding that that agency or those agencies be redesigned…I see nothing here but a filibuster threat against Director Cordray as an attempt to weaken the consumer agency. I think the delay in getting him confirmed is bad for consumers, it’s bad for small banks, bad for credit unions, for anyone trying to offer an honest product in an honest market. The American people deserve a Congress that worries less about helping big banks and more about helping regular people who have been cheated on mortgages, on credit cards, on student loans and on credit reports. I hope you get confirmed. You have earned it, Director Cordray.

Watch it:

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/13/1710781/elizabeth-warren-slams-republicans-for-trying-to-weaken-consumer-finance-protections/

[jollyreaper2112]

1. warren

I would have her babies, though it would have to be seahorse-style.

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2. Obama To Senate Dems: We Need Solution To GOP’s Confirmation Filibusters

Obama To Senate Dems: We Need Solution To GOP’s Confirmation Filibusters

Brian Beutler

In a closed door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats on Tuesday, President Obama expressed his frustration with Republican slow-walking and filibustering of key nominees, and urged them to address the issue, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide.

The exchange, which a senior White House official confirmed to TPM, comes as Senate Democratic leaders weigh plans to confront ongoing GOP obstruction of Obama nominees — including multiple high-profile filibusters just weeks after the parties agreed to Senate rules reforms intended to grease the confirmation process.

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The story isn’t much better for nominees who do get confirmed. On Monday, the Senate confirmed Richard Taranto for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 484 days after he was nominated. He was confirmed 91-0. Friday marked one year since Obama nominated Patty Shwartz to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals; her nomination is still pending.

But the federal court logjam will be hard to clear without some kind of forcing mechanism. And the GOP’s threat to filibuster any and all nominees to direct the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could provide it. The current director, Richard Cordray, is serving on a recess appointment, which expires at the end of the year. And without a director, the CFPB will find its regulatory powers greatly diminished. If Democrats want to secure that piece of their Obama-era legacy, without acceding to GOP efforts to structurally weaken it, they’ll have to figure out a way to move the needle on Cordray’s nomination and perhaps nominations more broadly.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/obama-to-senate-dems-we-need-solution-to-gops-confirmation-filibusters.php