CFPB Through The Looking Glass

Will they? Won't they? The CFPB is caught in sitcom land.

The bizarre saga that is the fate of the CFPB is continuing to unfold on an almost daily basis. 

How does an administration meet its baseline statutory obligations to administer the functions of an agency it doesn’t favor? 

Strip away all the legalities, and that really is the legal issue being debated in DC Federal Court. 

For the last couple of weeks, for example, a coalition of federal employees, consumer rights groups, and civil rights advocates continues to seek a restraining order against the Trump Administration’s efforts to deep-freeze the CFPB. The Trump Administration is committed to ensuring that the Bureau continues to carry out all its statutorily required functions even as it tries to move forward with steps to reduce significantly the Bureau’s footprint.  

Following a hearing in DC Federal Court on this issue in mid-March, the Judge urged both sides to try to develop a mutually agreed upon preliminary injunction order should the court decide to block the Administration’s actions. A compromise could not be reached. The Trump Administration argued that it is performing all the Bureau’s required statutory functions, but at the same time, it insisted that a preliminary injunction codifying these requirements would be ambiguous.  

The plaintiffs propose prohibiting the wholesale cancelation of contracts with the CFPB but allowing the Bureau to halt services on a contract based on an individualized assessment that the contract is unnecessary to a “statutory function.” The latest dispute demonstrates yet again that we are in legally unchartered waters. The President has a constitutional obligation to make sure that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed. Is there a way of devising criteria that courts can use to determine if this obligation is being upheld, or is the issue so inherently political that it is best left resolved by Congress and the Executive?

CFPB Through The Looking Glass -