A federal appeals panel in Washington last week appeared ready to disrupt the organizational structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which vests power in the hands of a single director.
During arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a challenge to the constitutionality of the consumer agency, the question appeared to be not whether the judges would alter the bureau’s structure, but rather how much. The judges pressed the bureau’s lawyer to defend the novelty of the CFPB’s structure. A single director, Richard Cordray, heads the bureau, and the president’s ability to remove the director is limited.
