Rohit Chopra became the third director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Thursday, after the Senate approved his nomination on a 50-48 party line vote.
Chopra, who previously served on the Federal Trade Commission, was nominated to replace the Donald Trump appointee Kathy Kraninger, who resigned in January at the request of President Joe Biden.
The confirmation ends a contentious partisan process after every Republican on the Senate Banking Committee voted against his candidacy, resulting in a 12-12 tie on the panel. Current Senate rules allow the Senate majority leader to offer a motion to advance nominees when committees are deadlocked, given that Democrats and Republicans have equal representation on committees in an evenly split Senate.
The very existence of the CFPB remains a partisan issue. The agency was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis with a mandate to set standards for consumer protection in the financial industry and to enforce federal consumer financial law.
Republicans have long objected to the agency being led by a single director, as opposed to a commission with representation from members of both parties. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that a provision in the law establishing the agency, which said the director could only be removed for cause and not at the discretion of the president, was unconstitutional.
Click here to read the rest of Chris Matthews’ report at marketwatch.com.