White House opens offensive to confirm consumer agency head

The White House on Sunday night launched a major offensive to get Richard Cordray confirmed this week as the new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law enacted last year.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House will be targeting senators from seven states with a media and lobbying offensive. Alaska, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, Tennessee and Utah are to be the focus of the administration’s efforts.

“Certainly this would be among the more aggressive efforts that the president has undertaken to get a nominee confirmed,” Earnest said.

{mosads}Cordray’s nomination will likely come to a Senate vote on Thursday and his prospects for getting the 60 votes needed look dim. Forty-five Republican senators have sent Obama a letter stating they will not confirm any nominee “absent structural changes that will make the Bureau accountable to the American people.”

Only Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) did not sign onto the letter. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) only signed it recently.

Earnest said the seven states were chosen because “in some cases, in these states there are senators who seem to be on the fence or have made statements not supportive of Mr. Cordray.”

The campaign appears designed to woo senators such as Susan Collins (R-Me.), Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and to shut down criticism by others like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

White House officials will be giving special access to local correspondents from these states, appear on local media and organize lobbying by mayors and other local officials on Cordray’s behalf.

“It will be difficult for members of the Senate to say why they oppose Mr. Cordray’s nomination,” Earnest said, saying the nominee has a “sterling reputation.”

“Who exactly are they protecting?” Deputy Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese asked.

Cordray was nominated after it became clear that President Obama could not get his first choice, Elizabeth Warren, confirmed by the Senate. Warren is now running for Scott Brown’s Massachusetts Senate seat.

The White House released a report Sunday detailing the consequences of failing to confirm Cordray. Obama this week will emphasize to the public that resistance to Cordray, along with resistance to extending a payroll tax holiday, shows the Republican party is ignoring the needs of the middle class.

{mossecondads}The report says that without a director in place the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be unable to regulate non-bank financial institutions including payday lenders, debt collectors and credit bureaus.

It lays out common complaints about abuses by such institutions and says that members of the armed services, the elderly, students and Latinos would especially benefit from having a CFPB director in place.

Enlisted service members often fall victim to easy credit offers, the elderly are regularly victimized by confusing credit terms, students have major issues with private student loan providers and Latino immigrants often pay high fees on wire transfers to send money home.

The report notes that the poor especially rely on payday lenders some of whom have been caught charging 400 percent interest on loans.

“Without a Director, Americans will not be protected from falling prey to many of the harmful practices that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” the report states.