Warren celebrates CFPB win at Supreme Court, warns of more challenges

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) celebrated the Supreme Court’s Thursday decision to reject a GOP challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding structure.

“The United States Supreme Court followed the law, and the CFPB is here to stay,” Warren said outside the Supreme Court.

“This is so terrific, this news is fabulous,” she said.

The court’s decision Thursday preserves the agency’s funding mechanism as constitutional. The 7-2 vote ends a battle that was the organization’s biggest legal threat since it was created after the 2008 financial crisis.

Warren was one of the key creators of the CFPB, which was established to enforce consumer protection laws and crack down on predatory lending through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.

She was joined Thursday by Cassandra Gould, a reverend and senior strategist with Faith in Action, who also celebrated the decision.

“When you have an agency that is this good at doing its job to protect consumers, then a lot of banks, a lot of payday lenders, a lot of Republicans come after it and try to shut it down,” Warren said.

Two lender trade associations, backed by business groups and each of the country’s Republican state attorneys general, attempted to attack the agency’s funding from the Federal Reserve, saying it violates Congress’s authority.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority and rejected the argument, ultimately siding with the Biden administration.

Warren said President Biden helped make the CFPB stronger because he believes in what it does.

While she said Thursday is about celebration, the Massachusetts senator warned that more challenges may be coming.

“We don’t fool ourselves. They’ll come back again, they’ll have another attack, they’ll figure out another way to go after the agency. They’ll do it again and again and again,” she said.

Warren argued that Republicans would attack CFPB because the agency costs the banks and payday lenders “a lot of money.”

“So, yeah, we know they’re out there. They got plenty of money, they’re gonna keep fighting, but so are we,” she said.