Groups use GOP threat on Consumer Bureau to make fresh push for Warren nomination

{mosads}Warren, currently a special adviser to the president in charge of setting up the CFPB, is a longtime favorite of progressives and consumer groups, but has been subject to strong criticism from Republicans. The White House has reportedly been reluctant to nominate her as the agency’s inaugural director over concerns that conservatives in the Senate would block the selection.

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said the GOP vow is simply a ploy to discredit the bureau before it goes live in July.

The group argues that the GOP move will force the president to make a recess appointment for the director position, which “they will use to claim that he and the agency are unaccountable and undemocratic.”

The group called on the president to use the move as an opportunity to nominate Warren to the post.

“The Senate Republicans’ strategic gambit likely leaves Obama no choice but to appoint a CFPB director during a Senate recess,” said David Arkush, director of the group’s Congress Watch division. “It also leaves him no reason to appoint anyone but the strongest candidate: Elizabeth Warren. That is a good thing.”

The group Americans for Financial Reform similarly called on the president to respond to the GOP threat by advancing Warren.

“We urge the President to stand up to this bullying, to swiftly nominate Professor Warren to lead the Consumer Bureau, and to make a recess appointment if the Senate refuses to act,” the group said in a statement.

In their letter, the Republican senators demanded three major changes be made to the CFPB before they would be willing to consider a director nominee. They want to establish a board of directors to run the agency instead of a lone director, bring the agency’s budget under the congressional appropriations process, and make it easier for other regulators to overturn CFPB rules if they deem them to be harmful to banks.

The lawmakers argue these changes would bring the agency’s “unchecked authority” under control and make it more accountable.

But Americans for Financial Reform contended the changes would stifle the agency before it even begins work in July.

“If the signers of this letter got their way the CFPB would be put back under the thumb of the regulators who failed to stand up for consumers so spectacularly the last time. It would be doomed to failure before it even began,” the group said.