A payday lender that was the subject of an enforcement action by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection has filed a brief in its appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit arguing that the leadership structure of the agency is unconstitutional.
The issue of whether the leadership structure of the BCFP, or if the agency itself, is constitutional has become a legal hot potato. A number of courts have weighed in on the topic at the District and Appeals Court levels.
In this case, the defendants, All American Check Cashing Inc. and Mid-State Finance, Inc., were sued back in 2016 by the BCFP for engaging in abusive, deceptive, an unfair conduct.
The Fifth Circuit had ruled in April that it would hear arguments in this case. A copy of the defendant’s brief asserting its case in CFPB v. All American Check Cashing Inc. and Mid-State Finance, Inc., and Michael Gray can be accessed by clicking here.
In making its argument, the defendants made sure to hit all of the anti-constitutional talking points.
Never in the history of the Republic has an independent agency with such vast power been lorded over by a single unelected official rather than a multi-member commission. In creating the CFPB, Congress wrested vast enforcement powers from the Executive Branch and placed them in the hands of an agent entirely un-accountable to the President, to Congress, or to the People. The CFPB’s Director is the most powerful official in the United States when it comes to consumer finance law—more powerful than the President himself.
The BCFP’s brief defending its position is due by July 16.
