Supreme Court won’t allow Republican AGs to join CFPB constitutionality suit

A coalition of 27 Republican state attorneys general led by Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia was denied the option to join oral arguments against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that will decide the constitutionality of its funding source, and which could decide the fate of the Bureau itself.

According to an unsigned order on Monday (as reported by Bloomberg Law), the high court declined a motion that would have allowed for the attorneys general to challenge the Bureau’s funding mechanism on grounds that it violates the Constitution’s separation of powers in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association case.

In their petition, the AG coalition argued that it would make a case surrounding a “special understanding of how an unbounded CFPB can damage the consumer-financial markets—and impair the States’ own abilities to regulate those markets,” according to the reporting.

The high court was unmoved, issuing its unsigned order on Monday. The ask by the AGs was unlikely to be granted, since the Supreme Court rarely admits such petitions.

Joining West Virginia in the effort included the attorneys general for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

Oral arguments in the case are currently scheduled to take place on Oct. 3, though a final decision is not expected until sometime in 2024. Recently, certain CFPB enforcement actions have been held up pending the constitutionality decision.