A Fighting Chance

covered their costs directly or indirectly through banking fees: For example, the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC, and the NCUA are not funded through the appropriations process in Congress. See http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm; http://www.ots.treas.gov/about/what-we-do/mission/index-about.html; http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/; http://www.ncua.gov/News/PressKits/Docs/PressKits.pdf.

because they didn’t like the agency he or she was due to run: Senator Sherrod Brown said publicly: “… some time ago I asked the Senate historian has this ever happened, that a political party has blocked a nomination of someone because they didn’t like the construction of the agency? And he said, no, it’s never happened.” Senator Harry Reid echoed this: “This is the first time in Senate history a party has blocked a qualified candidate solely because they disagree with the existence of the agency that’s being created by law.” This was later confirmed as true by PolitiFact. Senate historian Donald A. Ritchie confirmed the unprecedented nature of Republicans’ attempts to block the nomination of an agency director unless there were drastic changes to the structure of that agency. The closest historical analogs the historian could provide were nineteenth-century cases of nominees being rejected because of significant policy disagreements with the president, but even those cases “did not involve a blanket blocking of nominees to a particular agency.” “Sen. Sherrod Brown Says Republicans’ Refusal to Confirm Richard Cordray to Head Consumer Protection Bureau Was Unprecedented,” Politifact.com, December 7, 2011.

and then, if needed, make a recess appointment: Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Keith Ellison (D-MN), and Brad Miller (D-NC) sent a letter to the president: “Since Republican Senators have said that no one is acceptable unless the law is weakened, we would urge you to nominate Professor Warren as the CFPB’s first Director anyway. If Republicans in the Senate indeed refuse to consider her, we request that you use your constitutional authority to make her a recess appointment.” The letter was signed by eighty-nine members of the House: http://maloney.house.gov/press-release/89-house-members-send-letter-president-urging-elizabeth-warren-be-appointed-head. Senator Al Franken also wrote a letter to the president urging him to make a recess appointment of me, http://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=news&id=1547.

keep me from becoming the head of the consumer agency: “Republicans are preventing the Senate from completely adjourning for the Memorial Day recess. Instead, the chamber will come in for three pro-forma sessions over the next 10 days. The cursory sessions are a formality that will ensure President Obama does not make recess appointments, a prospect that was considered unlikely anyway because the recess is scheduled for only a week. Some Republicans feared that Obama would use the recess to appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will have broad powers over Wall Street.” Alexander Bolton and Josiah Ryan, “GOP Forces Senate Pro-Forma Session,” The Hill, May 27, 2011. See also Brian Montopoli, “Senate GOP Blocks Possible Elizabeth Warren Recess Appointment,” CBS News, May 27, 2011.

George Washington himself to be head of the consumer agency: In a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce, Representative Spencer Bachus made the following remark about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the discretion vested in the head of the agency: “If George Washington came back today, or Abraham Lincoln or Warren Buffett signed up [to head the agency], I wouldn’t give that person total discretion.” Edward Wyatt, “Warren Defends Agency at Chamber of Commerce,” New York Times, March 30, 2011.

director of the agency was “dead on arrival”: The day of Cordray’s nomination, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said: “We’ll insist on serious reforms to bring accountability and transparency to the agency before we consider any nominee to run it.” The day after Cordray’s nomination, Senator Moran said: “It is unclear why the centerpiece of the president’s financial reform package has taken so long to materialize, but what is clear is that this nomination is dead on arrival because it does nothing to increase accountability or shed light on the operations of the CFPB.” Phil Mattingly, “Republicans Target CFPB, Call Nomination ‘Dead on Arrival,’” Bloomberg, July 19, 2011. A few days later, Senator Shelby wrote a scathing anti-CFPB op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Richard Shelby, “The Danger of an Unaccountable ‘Consumer’ Protection Czar,” Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2011.