Yet another in a series of moves that signal the destruction from within of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Consumer Advisory Board or CAB members and members of two other advisory boards were fired. Their terms were terminated, and they weren’t permitted to re-apply.
This action took place two days after 11 consumer advocates and academics shared their concern over the cancellation of the only two CAB meetings scheduled for this year, as well as the direction of the bureau away from helping everyday Americans.
“Firing the current CAB members is another move indicating Acting Director Mick Mulvaney is only interested in obtaining views from his inner circle, and has no interest in hearing the perspectives of those who work with struggling American families,” said Ann Baddour, CAB chair.
The National Consumer Law Center said in a call with advisory board members Wednesday, Anthony Welcher, a staff member brought in by Mulvaney, gave these reasons for the termination:
- The bureau wanted to save a few hundred thousand dollars, which is estimated to be less than .08 percent of the agency’s overall budget. This is despite the fact that members on Wednesday’s call offered to pay to attend meetings from their own budgets.
- The bureau cited responses to a Request for Information or RFI on External Engagement as a justification for the change. When asked, Welcher said that the decision was made before the RFI had closed, and he could point to no RFI response calling for dissolving the advisory boards. A review of the RFI responses shows there was no response calling for restructuring or dissolution of the current advisory boards.
- The bureau cited wanting a more diverse, smaller, and inclusive group of people involved. Yet, the advisory groups are a small, diverse group of members, based on the Dodd-Frank Act. Members questioned how Mulvaney could have come to this conclusion based on the fact that there had been no meaningful interaction with members of the advisory committees under Mulvaney’s administration.
- One of the additional explanations for the firing of the advisory board members is a “new” plan to hold Town Hall meetings and intimate roundtable discussions – two long-standing practices of the bureau – and, therefore, not a justification for firing more than 60 volunteers.
Eleven CAB members stated their concern Monday that Mulvaney was sidelining the CAB members who have informed the bureau’s work for years. With Wednesday’s action, Mulvaney now has the opportunity to stack the board with new CAB members who likely will embrace his deregulatory efforts, the center said.
“This partisan act will endanger families across the nation as well as our economy,” said Lynn Drysdale, CAB vice-chair. “Federal law requires that the CAB be a well-balanced entity in terms of point of view and that it not be ‘inappropriately influenced by’ the bureau director. Any other composition goes against the standards of the law.”
On May 18, the chair of the CAB sent a letter to Mulvaney about CAB concerns, and on May 25, 15 members of the CAB sent a follow-up letter to him urging him to hold the June 6-7 meeting, which was then canceled. Mulvaney provided a response to the May 25 letter after a press call on Monday. The letter outlined that there is "no cause for concern" related to the canceled meetings but didn’t address the many other bureau actions that are undermining consumer protections for the American people.
Apparently, there was “cause for concern” as all of the current members on all three advisory boards have been fired, the center said.
In reaching its decision, Welcher said that the bureau had relied on conversations and roundtables that weren’t part of the official record for the RFI. The 11 members asked that the records of these conversations and roundtables be released.
“Firing current members of the advisory board is a huge red flag in this administration's ongoing erosion of critical consumer financial protections that help average families,” said National Consumer Law Center attorney Chi Chi Wu and member of the bureau's Consumer Advisory Board. “Apparently Acting Director Mulvaney is willing to listen to industry lobbyists who make campaign contributions, but not the statutorily appointed Consumer Advisory Board members.”
In a speech to Congress, Senator Elizabeth Warren called the Trump administration’s attempts to deregulate the bureau and other federal agencies corruption.
“Giant corporations and wealthy individuals are working in the shadows to make sure that government works for them, not for the people,” Warren said. “To hide what they are doing, big corporations and Republicans here in Washington often claim that government regulations are bad for our economy. They go on and on about how ‘big government’ restricts freedom and makes it harder for businesses to succeed.”
“That's a big, greasy baloney sandwich – a greasy baloney sandwich that has been left out in the sun too long and has started to stink,” she said.
The 11 members of the CAB were:
Ann Baddour, Texas Appleseed; Consumer Advisory Board Chair
Lynn Drysdale, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid Inc., Consumer Advisory Board Vice-Chair
Seema M. Agnani, National CAPACD – National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development
Sylvia Alvarez, Housing and Education Alliance
Kathleen Engel,
Suffolk University Law School
Judith Fox, Notre Dame Law School
Paulina Gonzalez, California Reinvestment Coalition
Julie Kalkowski, Creighton University
Ruhi Maker, Empire Justice Center
Lisa Servon, University of Pennsylvania
Chi Chi Wu, National Consumer Law Center
Josh Zinner, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
