The CFPB plays an integral role in the nation’s financial system. The Bureau’s work ensures that the system functions in a manner that is responsive to the interests of all market participants—consumers, large financial entities, and smaller institutions like Amici. Congress’s chosen method of funding the Bureau underpins the Bureau’s ability to do this important work, free from the outsized influence of any one market segment.
Petitioners’ brief convincingly demonstrates that nothing in the text or history of the Constitution—or any decisions of this Court—supports the Fifth Circuit’s unprecedented holding that the Bureau’s funding mechanism (and that of many other regulators including key financial regulators like the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) is unconstitutional. Amici do not believe that more needs to be said on that score.
Amici submit this brief, instead, to provide a realworld picture of what is at stake in this case beyond the pure question as to the meaning of the Appropriations Clause. The Bureau’s role in the financial regulatory system is best understood in the context of the myriad changes that Congress made to the nation’s financial regulatory scheme in Title X of the Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”), changes carefully calibrated to address shortcomings in that system revealed by the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession. In the twelve years since its inception, the Bureau has carried out its responsibilities under Dodd-Frank to achieve Congress’s purposes. This is illustrated, in part, by the work the Bureau has done to be responsive to the unique needs of smaller financial institutions, including credit unions and CDFIs like the Amici, allowing these institutions to compete more effectively for consumers’ business against larger institutions.
Understanding the judgments Congress made, and the role that the Bureau plays within the regulatory system, further demonstrates why this Court should not overturn Congress’s decision with respect to the appropriate method of funding the CFPB’s operations. Indeed, a decision striking down that funding mechanism would cause significant disruption to the regulatory system, to the severe detriment of financial institutions like Amici and the consumers they serve.