House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, has gone on record plenty of times urging President Donald Trump to fire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray.
This latest take in a post on Medium by the Financial Services Committee, however, presented the case for firing Cordray in a different way.
In the new post titled, “In Their Own Words: Democrats Make the Case for Firing Richard Cordray,” the committee gave a piece-by-piece break down on how committee Democrats unintentionally created a case to fire Cordray.
Under the current law, the president may remove the director for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
A past article from the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy noted that no president has removed an appointee for cause. “Most presidents have not attempted it and the three times a president has tried to remove an official with for-cause protections—on the ground that the for-cause protection were invalid (not that there was cause for removals)—the courts stopped the president from doing so.”
The blog presents the case for how Cordray has neglected his duty by not following Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act.
From the blog:
Under Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act, financial institutions are required to collect and report information concerning credit applications made by women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses. The stated purpose of Section 1071 is to “facilitate enforcement of fair lending laws and enable communities, governmental entities, and creditors to identify business and community development needs and opportunities of women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses.” Section 1071 provides that the CFPB “shall prescribe such rules, and issue such guidance as may be necessary to carry out, enforce, and compile data pursuant to this section.”
But, according to the post, Cordray has not fulfilled his mandatory statutory obligation to implement Section 1071 despite being there more than five years.
Democrats definitely noticed the lack of initiative though, penning a handful of letters urging Cordray to get started on the rule-making process.
Here’s one example:
On August 21, 2015, eighty-four Democrat members of the House of Representatives wrote Director Cordray to “urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to expedite rulemaking on the implementation of Section 1071.” They emphasized that “now is the time to initiate rulemaking on Section 1071.” They stated that “Regulation B is essential for facilitating the enforcement of fair lending laws,” and concluded their letter by stating: “We respectfully urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to move forward this year with its Regulation B rulemaking without further delay.”
Now nearly two years past that letter, and the blog stated that the CFPB’s assistant director of regulations admitted in a recent blog post that the CFPB is only now “in the very early stages of starting work to implement Section 1071.”
After adding up the time and lack of initiative, the committee stated that this is cause for firing.
The Financial Services Committee stated that Cordray’s failure to implement section 1071 constitutes inefficiency and neglect of duty.
If that’s the case and if President Trump agrees, Cordray likely won’t stick around for his full term that ends in July 2018.
