With the CFPB’s Future in Doubt, What Happens Next?: Editorial

Consumer financial protection is one of those phrases, like voting rights and universal health care, that’s far more controversial than it sounds. In the dozen years since Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it has proved to be a partisan minefield, relentlessly contested by lawmakers, businesses and the courts.

On Oct. 3 the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the legality of the bureau’s funding. Chances are high that most of the justices will agree with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling that the CFPB’s budget design is unconstitutional because it circumvents the congressional appropriations process.

Legally, ...