Amicus briefs were due this week in support of the group suing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over whether the funding structure that gives the CFPB its budget is constitutional, and a number of groups, including ACA International, former Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, 132 current Members of Congress, 21 former Members of Congress, and 27 state Attorneys General — to name just a few — all filed briefs.
Along with attempting to convince the Supreme Court that the manner in which the CFPB is funded — through direct requests made to the Federal Reserve Board instead of going through the Congressional appropriations process — ACA International also outlined how the court should proceed after reaching its ruling. The Court should stay its ruling in order to give Congress the opportunity to enact the necessary legislation to bring the CFPB under the appropriations process, ACA wrote. “A stay would allow the Bureau to continue to exist, protecting market and institutional stability, while simultaneously allowing the political branches time to respond to — and potentially remedy, if desired — the defective financing scheme,” it argued.
In his brief, Mulvaney called the CFPB “one of the most opaque, least transparent, and potentially most abusive agencies in the federal government.” The separation of powers demands Congressional oversight over the CFPB, just as it oversees the rest of the federal government, he said. “It would make a mockery of the separation of powers if Congress were to, for example, authorize the Navy to spend whatever it deems ‘reasonably necessary’ in defense of the country — in perpetuity,” Mulvaney argued. ” “But that is exactly what Congress has done with the Bureau.”
Other groups that submitted briefs in support of the Community Financial Services Association were:
- Atlantic Legal Foundation
- Americans for Prosperity Foundation
- State of West Virginia and 26 Other States
- Landmark Legal Foundation
- Former Members of Congress
- Credit Union National Association, Inc., National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, and American Association of Credit Union Leagues
- New England Legal Foundation
- ACA International
- Washington Legal Foundation
- New Civil Liberties Alliance, et al.
- Third Party Payment Processors Association
- 132 Members of Congress
- Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al.
- The Foundation for Government Accountability
- John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney
- America’s Future, U.S. Constitutional Rights Legal Defense Fund, and Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund
