BREAKING: The Hill/On Eve of ObamaCare Decision, Texas Bank Files Suit To Challenge Constitutionality of Dodd-Frank Law

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From the Hill.com:

A Texas community bank is filing suit in U.S. District Court to challenge the constitutionality of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

In particular, the suit will contend that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by the law, lacks sufficient checks and balances and, in the words of State National Bank’s CEO, is “simply unconstitutional.”

“No other federal agency or commission operates in such a way that one person can essentially determine who gets a home loan, who can get a credit card and who can get a loan for college,” said Jim Purcell, head of the Big Spring, Texas, bank. “Dodd-Frank effectively gives unlimited regulatory power to this so-called Consumer Financial Protection Board, also known as CFPB, with a director who is not accountable to Congress, the President or the Courts.”

C. Boyden Gray, who served as White House Counsel under former President George H.W. Bush, will represent the bank in court.

Opposing Obama Appointment: C. Boyden Gray Weighs in on Richard Cordray Nomination, Vote Likely Thursday

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Statement from C. Boyden Gray on the Senate’s consideration of former Ohio AG Richard Cordray to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  The CFPB has been criticized by some Senators as being the largest government bureaucracy without any accountability. The White House has launched a big push behind Cordray, but 45 Republican Senators have signed a letter saying they’ll oppose his appointment unless the CFPB is reformed, exactly Ambassador Gray’s point below.

 

Former White House Counsel and former Ambassador to the European Union C. Boyden Gray:

“Cordray should not be confirmed unless Congress makes some essential changes in the CFPB’s structure to make it accountable Constitutionally and politically. This means (1) giving Congress authority to review the CFPB’s budget and policies, restoring the independent judicial review authority of the courts who are directed by the current legislation to rubber stamp anything the CFPB wants to do about the provision of credit in any form nationwide (regardless of what any other agency believes) and (3) remaking the Director’s post into a bi-partisan multi-member Commission as [Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Senate candidate] Elizabeth Warren herself recommended.”