The Senate Banking Committee voted along party lines today to push Richard Cordray’s nomination to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ahead, although Republicans have vowed to block his confirmation, according to the New York Times.
The panel voted 12-to-10 to approve Cordray’s nomination.
“We are simply seeking common-sense changes,” Mr. Shelby, the committee’s ranking minority member, said in a statement after the vote. “Today’s vote by the Senate Banking Committee was premature. No nominee for the director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection should receive consideration until the Democrats are ready to stop playing politics and work with us to make the bureau accountable. It’s their choice.”
Looks like Richard Cordray’s CFPB head nomination is gaining some traction. Reuters is reporting that the Senate Banking Committee is expected to vote on Obama’s pick to run the new consumer agency on October 6.
According to the Associated Press, in remarks prepared for the hearing, Cordray said his experience as former Ohio attorney general taught him that litigation can be slow, costly, and unnecessarily acrimonious. He said he would use lawsuits “judiciously,” and noted that the bureau has other powers to resolve problems, including issuing rules, writing reports and examining large banks and many nonbank institutions.
In a bid to reach out to Republicans, Cordray also said that if confirmed, “I promise that you will have one person who will always be accountable to you for how we are carrying out the laws laid down by Congress and I will be eager to hear your thoughts about how we should do our work.”
Here’s a look at what’s on the docket for today’s hearing:
Panel 1
Ms. Patricia M. Loui
to be a Member of the Board of Directors
Export-Import Bank of the United States, Hawaii
Mr. Larry W. Walther
to be a Member of the Board of Directors
Export-Import Bank of the United States
Panel 2
Honorable Richard Cordray
to be Director
Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
American Banker is pulling out all the stops. Here are others that are expected to speak at the event: Martin Gruenberg, acting chairman of the FDIC; John Walsh, acting Comptroller of the Currency; Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee; Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee; and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who serves on the house financial services committee.
Could Obama miss seeing a CFPB director appointment during his first-term in office? Some think that the Cordray confirmation could be drawn out for weeks, if not months.
“This situation will continue until 2013,” said Mark Calabria, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Banking Committee who is now director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. “Republicans are unlikely to support anyone until all three of their changes are made. Just keeping the agency around is viewed as a major compromise.”
Is that the Cordray Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday is getting postponed. Still waiting for it to hit the wire. Will post something once it surfaces.
Many have been wondering who Richard Cordray is? While unknown to the everyday consumer, much of Wall Street and the mortgage industry has been familiar with his name for quite some time.
MSNBC’s Red Tape offers a more in-depth perspective on the nominee President Obama has picked to run the CFPB.
“He is as authentic as you can get. He’s the same person when the cameras are on or when he’s with his family,” said Kimberly Kowalski, a former press aide for Cordray. “Sometimes it works to his detriment. He would just say what was in his heart, even if I’d prepared remarks for him … but Rich is all for that man on the street. If he meets someone and they tell him a problem, he remembers it, and he acts on it, and three months later, he’ll check to make sure it got fixed. Things never fall off his radar.”
