Eleven state attorneys general, being led by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, requesting that it accept a case that challenges the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s leadership structure.
A copy of the brief, which was signed by the AGs of Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia, can be accessed by clicking here.
“The CFPB’s structure allows for an unelected and unaccountable director to effectively wield more power than any official in the U.S. government aside from the President of the United States,” Paxton said in a statement. “This considerable power being held by a public official who is not held accountable to the President, Congress, or the People is an intolerable violation of our Constitution and a threat to the liberty of every American.”
While the Supreme Court has already decided to hear arguments in Seila Law v. CFPB, in which it will debate whether the CFPB being led by a single director is constitutional or not, the AGs are urging the Supreme Court to also hear arguments in the case of All American Check Cashing v. CFPB, which essentially deals with the same legal question.
All American Check Cashing was sued by the CFPB back in 2016 for allegedly engaging in abusive, deceptive, and unfair conduct. The lender has been fighting the lawsuit ever since, and is currently awaiting a ruling from the Fifth Circuit on its argument that the leadership structure of the CFPB is unconstitutional. Not content to just force the CFPB to alter its leadership structure, All American Check Cashing is also raising questions about what should happen to companies that have been subject to enforcement actions of an unconstitutionally structured agency of the federal government.
In its brief, the state AGs argue that the CFPB had “no authority to bring or to continue the enforcement action.” The state of Mississippi has already engaged in an enforcement action with All American, it’s noted in the brief, and the CFPB has brought “unchecked power to bear” on All American while being “free from executive oversight.”
