WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and U.S. Representatives Trent Kelly, R-Miss., Michael Guest, R-Miss., and Mike Ezell, R-Miss., have signed an amicus brief that encourages the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a Fifth Circuit decision that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding structure is unconstitutional and to make the Bureau’s funding subject to congressional appropriations.  The circuit court decision was written by Judge Cory Wilson from Mississippi.

The Mississippi lawmakers are among 132 members of Congress who filed the amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, et al., v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited, et al.

“The Court need not determine which particular aspect of the CFPB’s funding scheme is the most problematic. This is the easy case. The CFPB ‘is in an entirely different league’ from other entities when it comes to its insulation from Congress…  to the point that the CFPB currently operates as ‘a sort of junior-varsity Congress’ setting its own funding levels in perpetuity… Such insulation means that Congress itself is not determining the CFPB’s funding. The Court should affirm the judgment below, which will return the matter of the CFPB’s funding to the normal political and legislative channels, as Article I and the Appropriations Clause require,” the brief states.

The brief was led by Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Tim Scott, R-S.C., and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

Read the brief here.