With the holiday season fast approaching, some peoples’ wish-lists include the iPad 2 or a pair of diamond earrings, but for Democrats, it’s all about a director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). What they’re wishing for is the Senate confirmation of Richard Cordray’s nomination for the role, and they’re planning a pre-Christmas vote to try once more to solidify the bureau’s authority, according to a U.S. Treasury blog post.
Later this week, the Senate is expected to vote on Corday’s nomination, and the White House is launching a lobbying campaign to push for his confirmation. The presidential nominee has been blocked before by a group of 44 Republicans who say they will not support his appointment or any other until the bureau’s structure of authority is changed to include a board rather than a sole director.
Cordray needs 60 Senate votes to win, which means he needs to break the Republican filibuster.
Blocking Cordray’s confirmation and leaving the CFPB to run without a director makes no sense, said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in a news conference on Thursday at the CFPB’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.
He urged the Senate to confirm the nomination, saying that Republicans aren’t protecting anyone with their concerns about the bureau’s authority structure.
“The longer we wait to confirm a director, the more we’re leaving millions of Americans who aren’t doing business with banks vulnerable to the kind of predation and abuse that caused so much damage in this crisis,” Geithner said, quoted in the Treasury blog post. “That’s not something we find acceptable.”
Read the Treasury blog post here.
Written by Alyssa Gerace
