A Texas community bank and two conservative advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court that challenges the legality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
According to TheHill.com, State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, has teamed with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the 60 Plus Association to have the CFPB declared unconstitutional. The plaintiffs argue that the CFPB was designed by the Dodd-Frank Act to operate in a manner without any federal oversight.
‘No other federal agency or commission operates in such a way that one person can essentially determine who gets a home loan, who can get a credit card and who can get a loan for college,’ says Jim Purcell, CEO of State National Bank. ‘Dodd-Frank effectively gives unlimited regulatory power to [the CFPB] with a director who is not accountable to Congress, the president or the courts.’
C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel to former President George H.W. Bush, will represent the plaintiffs in court. Gray says that he will also challenge President Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray as CFPB director by arguing that the appointment was illegal because the Senate was holding pro forma sessions at the time of the appointment.
‘We think there was no recess,’ says Gray. ‘We think only Congress can decide when it was in recess.’
The CFPB did not publicly comment on the lawsuit.