Democrats, help make Elizabeth Warren's agency accountable

Liberals and Democrats are suddenly worried about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency they created to regulate lenders.

The cause for their concern is that Richard Cordray, the chairman appointed by former President Barack Obama and confirmed by a Democratic Senate, announced Wednesday that he will resign, a few months before the end of his five-year term.

Democrats are gnashing their teeth because President Trump will now nominate Cordray’s replacement, and Republicans, who control Capitol Hill, get to confirm him.

Democrats are distressed by Trump nominees’ managing of all sorts of agencies, including Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Export-Import Bank. With the CFPB, their anxiety is particularly acute, in part because the agency is such a darling of the Democrats — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., conceived it and Dodd-Frank created it — but in part, too, because of its nature.

Shockingly, and perhaps unconstitutionally, the CFPB exists beyond congressional oversight. The supposedly supreme body of our government, the one most responsible to the people, the one designated by the Constitution to control the pursestrings of government, Congress neither sets funding for CFPB nor has any real oversight besides confirmation of its members.