A recent ruling by a federal appeals court invalidating recess appointments made by President Obama has no impact on the president’s appointment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s director, according to the director, himself.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in a collective bargaining lawsuit filed against soda bottler and distributor Noel Canning that the recess appointment of three members of the National Labor Relations Board violated the Constitution’s Recess Appointments Clause.
The decision was expected to have a direct impact on the recess appointment of CFPB Director Richard Cordray and cast a cloud over the agency’s regulation of non-bank lenders.
But that’s not the opinion of Cordray, who commented on his status during a webinar hosted by the National Credit Union Administration.
“It has no impact on my position,” Cordray stated.
He said that the CFPB was not a party to the National Labor Relations Board case and is not subject to the appeals court ruling.
While the ruling is expected to be binding on a separate lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that directly challenges the CFPB director appointment, Cordray was undeterred by that case.
“It’s on kind of a slow track, and there is briefing going on right now,” he said of the lawsuit. “It’s not clear whether the case will survive preliminary jurisdictional challenges.
“So the situation we’re in is I’ve been appointed by the president. We have a job to do. The bureau is law of the land. The Dodd Frank act is law of the land. And there are specific requirements and tasks and duties that Congress has given the bureau to do — and we will continue to perform those tasks and duties.”
