ScreamingEagle
Gold Member
- Jul 5, 2004
- 13,399
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News strikes today that Harvard law Professor Elizabeth Warren will, indeed, will be tapped to help set up the newly authorized Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
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How Is This Okay?
Second, this strategy is really quite shady. This isn't just the President appointing another czar, like the car czar or pay czar to oversee some temporary program already in motion. Warren will be responsible for creating an entirely new major federal agency from scratch. And the CFPB is arguably the most significant new financial industry regulator since the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Association was created in 1974. Now we learn that an unconfirmed Presidential appointee will be its central architect. How is that okay?
Whether you are for or against Elizabeth Warren's role in the CFPB here is irrelevant. This question is one of principle: should an appointee who Congress has not vetted have this kind of authority? While it's true that the Treasury Secretary will still have ultimate discretion over the process, it's seems pretty likely that the President promised Warren that she would be the chief influence here. Can you imagine him saying, "Listen Elizabeth. We will probably try to get you confirmed eventually as head, but for now work with Tim and help him create the Bureau, and be sure to run all your ideas by him first." It's hard to imagine she would have agreed to assist unless promised significant authority.
So why is the President legally able to do this? Because the big summer financial regulation bill that spawned the CFPB also provided the President the authority to hire an interim director without confirmation. So obviously he's within his right to hire Warren as a special adviser. That's why it's pretty odd to see Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) having said that he believes any candidate for leading the Bureau should go through the Senate confirmation process. He did, after all, help to write the awful provision in the bill that allows the President to bestow this substantial power on an appointee without Congress' explicit consent.
3 Oddities of Warren's Appointment as Consumer Financial Protection Czar - Daniel Indiviglio - Business - The Atlantic
...
How Is This Okay?
Second, this strategy is really quite shady. This isn't just the President appointing another czar, like the car czar or pay czar to oversee some temporary program already in motion. Warren will be responsible for creating an entirely new major federal agency from scratch. And the CFPB is arguably the most significant new financial industry regulator since the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Association was created in 1974. Now we learn that an unconfirmed Presidential appointee will be its central architect. How is that okay?
Whether you are for or against Elizabeth Warren's role in the CFPB here is irrelevant. This question is one of principle: should an appointee who Congress has not vetted have this kind of authority? While it's true that the Treasury Secretary will still have ultimate discretion over the process, it's seems pretty likely that the President promised Warren that she would be the chief influence here. Can you imagine him saying, "Listen Elizabeth. We will probably try to get you confirmed eventually as head, but for now work with Tim and help him create the Bureau, and be sure to run all your ideas by him first." It's hard to imagine she would have agreed to assist unless promised significant authority.
So why is the President legally able to do this? Because the big summer financial regulation bill that spawned the CFPB also provided the President the authority to hire an interim director without confirmation. So obviously he's within his right to hire Warren as a special adviser. That's why it's pretty odd to see Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) having said that he believes any candidate for leading the Bureau should go through the Senate confirmation process. He did, after all, help to write the awful provision in the bill that allows the President to bestow this substantial power on an appointee without Congress' explicit consent.
3 Oddities of Warren's Appointment as Consumer Financial Protection Czar - Daniel Indiviglio - Business - The Atlantic
