---

---

Released: December 08, 2011

U.S. Senate votes against consumer leader, for politics as usual

Contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 301-718-2511

Richard Cordray, an eminently qualified candidate for the position of director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), was denied access to the job today after the U.S. Senate voted to block his nomination based purely on partisan politics.

45 Senators chose to vote against consumers and with the big Wall Street banks again. Republican Senators blocked Cordray’s nomination  in an attempt to restructure the agency and reduce its impact. No Senator denies that the former Ohio attorney general is qualified to run the consumer agency.

“What a colossal waste of time and taxpayer money to fight a battle Republicans lost a year and half ago, when the Senate voted in a bi-partisan way to create this consumer bureau,” says Linda Sherry, Consumer Action’s director national priorities. “It’s time to let the financial watchdog do its work.”

Without a director, the CFPB’s authority to oversee previously unregulated industries such as payday lenders, private student lenders, credit bureaus, debt collectors and others remain in limbo. Rules that apply to one set of lenders will not apply to another – even if the same financial product is offered - until the CFPB has a director.

As the sole consumer financial regulator, the CFPB is designed to educate, inform, and protect consumers in a more transparent, fair marketplace. Congress’s continued refusal to allow the CFPB to operate at full speed draws focus away from the nation’s real problems that desperately needs its attention.

###