This morning, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee in conjunction with Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY); Assistant Leader Joe Neguse (D-CO); Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee; and the House Democratic Litigation Working Group led a group of 203 House Democrats in filing an amicus brief defending the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the matter of National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), et al. v. CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought, et al. before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“What we are seeing right now from the Trump Administration is the culmination of a 15-year effort to systematically and illegally gut the consumer bureau and block the agency from doing crucial work to take on the megabanks and predatory lenders that are ripping off hard-working Americans, all in an effort to further enrich themselves off the backs of hard-working families. I am proud to lead this amicus brief with my Democratic colleagues in the House and I remain confident that the Court will uphold the law,” said Congresswoman Waters.

Members filed this brief in response to a long list of illegal actions taken in recent weeks by the Trump Administration to undermine and ultimately eliminate the CFPB, including: sweeping stop-work orders preventing CFPB staff from doing their jobs, including supervising the largest banks for consumer compliance and finalizing 38 pending enforcement cases; firing 10% of CFPB employees with plans to fire up to 95% of the staff; attempting to defund the CFPB; and granting access to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to large amounts of sensitive data on consumers and financial institutions, including payment apps that Musk’s X platform will soon compete with.

As the members highlight in the brief, the CFPB was established by Congress, including by members like Congresswoman Waters, through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in response to the catastrophic 2008 financial crisis, which exposed significant gaps in financial regulation and consumer protection. Given the CFPB was created by Congress, President Trump does not have any authority to eliminate it:

“Congress vested the Bureau with the authority to interpret and enforce consumer protection laws, to supervise and regulate the most consequential bank and nonbank financial institutions in the country, to receive and respond to consumer complaints, and more. Defendants cannot unilaterally undo Congress’s reasoned determination that consumers need a watchdog. Only Congress can do that.” Wrote the lawmakers.

Since its inception 15 years ago, the CFPB has secured more than $21 billion in relief for more than 205 million consumers by taking action against bad-acting financial institutions. Because of their good work, this is a very popular agency with four out of five Americans, including 77% of Republicans, supporting the agency CFPB:

“Wells Fargo agreed to a $100 million civil penalty for opening deposit and credit accounts in consumers’ names without their knowledge, and Bank of America agreed to pay $250 million for opening fake credit card accounts without authorization, illegally charging repeated ‘insufficient funds’ fees for the same transaction, and withholding rewards promised to consumers. In the nonbank realm, an enforcement action against student-loan servicer Navient Corporation for among other things, botching payment processing and misleading borrowers about their repayment plans, resulted in $100 million paid back to consumers, a $20 million civil penalty fine, and a permanent ban on Navient serving federal student loans.” Wrote the lawmakers.

Other federal and state agencies do not have sufficient authority to fill the regulatory vacuum left behind if the CFPB is effectively eliminated. Without the CFPB, working-class families, communities of color, servicemembers, students, and older adults will be at greater risk of abuse at the hands of financial institutions, even more so than they were prior to the creation of the CFPB in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Click here to read the full brief.

The brief, in conjunction with the Litigation and Rapid Response Task Force, was led by Ranking Member Maxine Waters (CA-43), House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Assistant Leader Joe Neguse (CO-02), and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and was also signed by Representatives Clark, Aguilar, Adams, Amo, Ansari, Auchincloss, Balint, Barragán, Beatty, Bell, Bera, Beyer, Bishop, Bonamici, Boyle, Brown, Brownley, Budzinski, Bynum, Carbajal, Carson, Carter, Casar, Case, Casten, Castor, Castro, Cherfilus-McCormick, Chu, “Chuy” García, Cisneros, Clarke, Cleaver, Clyburn, Cohen, Conaway, Connolly, Correa, Courtney, Craig, Crockett, Crow, Davis, Dean, DeGette, DeLauro, DelBene, Deluzio, DeSaulnier, Dexter, Dingell, Doggett, Elfreth, Escobar, Espaillat, Evans, Fields, Figures, Fletcher, Foster, Foushee, Friedman, Frost, Garamendi, R. Garcia, S. Garcia, Gay Scanlon, Goldman, Gomez, Gottheimer, Goodlander, Green, Grijalva, Hayes, Himes, Holmes Norton, Horsford, Houlahan, Hoyer, Hoyle, Huffman, Ivey, Jackson, Jacobs, Jayapal, H. Johnson, Jr., J. Johnson, Kamlager-Dove, Kaptur, Keating, Kelly, Kennedy, Khanna, Krishnamoorthi, Landsman, Larson, Latimer, S. L. Lee, S. Lee, Leger Fernández, Levin, Liccardo, Lieu, Lofgren, Lynch, Magaziner, Mannion, Matsui, McBath, McBride, McClain, McClellan, McCollum, McDonald Rivet, McGarvey, McGovern, McIver, Meeks, Menendez, Meng, Mfume, Min, Moore, Morelle, Morrison, Moskowitz, Moulton, Mrvan, Mullin, Nadler, Neal, Norcross, Ocasio-Cortez, Olszewski, Omar, Pallone, Panetta, Pappas, Pelosi, Peters, Pettersen, Pingree, Plaskett, Pocan, Pou, Pressley, Quigley, Ramirez, Randall, Riley, Rivas, Ross, Ruiz, Salinas, Sánchez, Schakowsky, Schneider, Schrier, D. Scott, R. Scott, Sewell, Sherman, Sherrill, Simon, Smith, Sorensen, Soto, Stansbury, Stanton, Stevens, Strickland, Subramanyam, Suozzi, Swalwell, Sykes, Takano, Thanedar, Thompson, Thompson, Titus, Tlaib, Tokuda, Tonko, N. Torres, R. Torres, Trahan, Tran, Turner, Underwood, Vargas, Veasey, Velázquez, Vindman, Wasserman, Watson Coleman, Whitesides, Williams, and Wilson.

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Background:

Congresswoman Waters was a key author of the Dodd-Frank Act and helped push for the inclusion of Title X, which created the CFPB.

Even before Trump and Musk officially launched their plan to dismantle the agency, Congresswoman Waters warned of these plans and sounded the alarm on Musk’s cruel call to “delete” the CFPB. Since then, Trump and Musk have ramped up their efforts to gut the agency and Congresswoman Waters has responded forcefully to reverse these actions. See the list here.

In recent days, Congresswoman Waters has also sent a letter pressing big bank trades regarding what their member banks are doing to comply with consumer financial protection laws and uphold consumers’ rights. She also recently took to the House floor to blast the Republican plan to defund the CFPB and harm working-class families.