In a recent ruling in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Ass’n, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding mechanism, preserving the regulator as we know it. The decision, with a 7-2 majority backing, had Justice Clarence Thomas elucidate a lucid case for the CFPB’s funding.
The fund mechanism for CFPB, established by statute and sourced from the Federal Reserve, has been upheld as following the precepts of the Appropriations Clause. Justice Thomas characterized an appropriation simply as a law that sanctions expenditures from a specified public money source for explicit purposes, subsequently pointing out that the Bureau’s funding satisfies these criteria.
However, the simplicity of the case, according to Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who offered a dissenting 25-page account, was debatable. Justice Alito scrutinized the CFPB’s funding using an ostensibly originalist analysis to declare it unconstitutional. The critique and rationale raised abounds with criticism for its alleged partisanship.
Justice Alito’s dissent not only drew public scrutiny, but also parsed ridicule even from his peers. Justice Clarence Thomas did not shy away from adding to the wave of backlash that ensued following Alito’s controversial stance. Alito’s dissent, deemed a deeply flawed affair, had potential national economic implications, but the nation breathed a sigh of relief as it was registered merely as a dissenting opinion.
Beyond Justice Alito, the Fifth Circuit too emerged from the situation bruised, as its decision to label the CFPB’s funding as unconstitutional was reversed. The Supreme Court’s decision serves as a sharp rebuke for the Fifth Circuit and draws attention to the latter’s alleged attempts to position its jurisprudence to the right, thereby affecting the perception of the Supreme Court itself.
While the preservation of the CFPB and the stability of our economy may seem like a cause for celebration for adherents of sound fiscal governance, this case also highlights the unsettling reality of a judiciary fraught with individuals who seem intent on a drastically different ideological path.