From today’s NPR News:
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the structure used to fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency tasked with enforcing consumer finance laws. By a vote of 7-2, the justices reversed a decision by a federal appeals court in Louisiana, which had ruled that the agency’s funding violates the Constitution because it comes from the Federal Reserve rather than through the congressional appropriations process.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, in a decision that relied heavily on both the text of the Constitution and early English and U.S. history.
Justice Samuel Alito dissented, in an opinion joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. He offered a dueling interpretation of history that he suggested, leads to the conclusion that the CFPB’s funding scheme “blatantly attempts to circumvent the Constitution.”
The case was one of several on the court’s docket this term involving the division of authority between the three branches of government, as well as the power of administrative agencies. It began as a challenge by two industry groups to a “payday lending” rule that the agency issued in 2017. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected their argument that the rule violated the federal laws governing administrative agencies.
But the court of appeals agreed with the groups that the agency’s funding structure – which was intended to foster its independence – is inconsistent with Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, which instructs that “[n]o money shall be withdrawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” In fact, the 5th Circuit concluded, the CFPB’s funding is “double-insulated” from Congress’s power under the appropriations clause, because the agency not only receives its funding from the Federal Reserve, but it (rather than Congress) determines the amount of that funding, by requesting the amount that the CFPB director deems “reasonably necessary to carry out” the bureau’s duties.
Read the complete story here.