RSSKathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has thrown her support behind the view that the agency she leads is structured unconstitutionally.
Kraninger addressed letters to Congressional leaders voicing her support for a recent case which challenges her authority at the bureau.
CFPB attorneys joined the Justice Department in filing a brief arguing that the bureau’s structure violates the Constitution. Like other arguments in this vein leveled against the CFPB over the years, it rests on the fact that the agency is led by a single director who can only be removed by the President for cause.
“I have decided that the bureau should adopt the Department of Justice’s view that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional,” Kraninger said. “A Supreme Court decision holding that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional should not affect the bureau’s ability to carry out its important mission.”
The brief urged the Supreme Court to take up Selia Law v. CFPB from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The structure of the Bureau, including the for-cause restriction on the removal of its single director, violates the Constitution’s separation of powers,” the administration’s attorneys wrote in the brief.
Previously, an appeals court affirmed the legality of the agency’s current structure in a January 2018 ruling.
