Forging Compromise
“She can help by bridging the gap between Republicans and Democrats,” Hunt said in an interview. “She has an opportunity early out of the gate to forge compromise to show she is a solutions person, not just a political person.”
John Taylor, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a consumer group representing more than 600 community organizations, said he thinks Warren will continue to oppose any changes to the bureau.
“I don’t think she was elected to be a wallflower nor does she have that kind of personality,” Taylor said in an interview. “She has strong feelings about protecting consumers and taxpayers.”
In 2007, while still a professor of bankruptcy at Harvard University Law School, Warren wrote a paper proposing the formation of a federal consumer agency designed to help protect ordinary Americans from shoddy financial products, just as the Consumer Product Safety Commission protects consumers from shoddy manufactured goods. Warren’s original name for the bureau was the “Financial Product Safety Commission.”
Dodd-Frank Act
Creation of what eventually was called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and fiercely opposed by the financial industry. Concerned that the bureau’s independence be protected from industry and congressional opponents, Democrats decided to give the bureau a sole director and have it funded and supervised outside the congressional appropriations process.
Some observers have suggested that Warren’s original support for a commission-led bureau might mean she would be amenable to compromise on that issue. Warren spokesman Dan Geldon said such speculation is mistaken.
“Senator Warren thinks the single director structure makes sense and that CFPB should continue to be able to operate, like every other banking regulator, without relying on appropriations for its funding,” Geldon said.
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