Dodd-Frank Authors Join Warren, Waters to Fight CFPB Firings (2)

The executive branch can’t unilaterally dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or make the agency incapable of carrying out its statutory functions because that power belongs exclusively to Congress, more than 230 current and former Democratic lawmakers said.

High-ranking Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) , as well as former lawmakers such as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), called out the Trump administration’s attempt to gut the CFPB in an amicus brief Friday, voicing support for the National Treasury Employees Union and co-plaintiffs in their legal challenge to mass layoffs at the agency.

Warren and Waters are the top Democrats on committees overseeing the CFPB and the banking industry, while Dodd and Frank led the legislation that created the consumer finance watchdog. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also signed on to the amicus brief.

The brief highlights key functions the Dodd-Frank Act laid out when it established the CFPB in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, noting Congress created the agency and therefore has the sole ability to abolish it. Many of those functions, such as investigating “unfair” practices by consumer finance companies, would effectively fall by the wayside without the CFPB, the lawmakers said.

CFPB leadership and DOGE staff members sent out reduction-in-force notices to 90% of the agency’s workforce last month, shortly after an appeals court panel narrowed an injunction that had blocked the layoffs in March. Judges at both the district and circuit court levels swiftly responded to the RIF plan by reinstating the terms of the original order, halting the firings pending the outcome of the NTEU’s legal challenge.

Lawmakers in their brief encouraged the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to affirm the preliminary injunction put in place by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. The federal appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments from the parties on May 16.

The Trump administration has defended its moves, arguing in a brief last month that the NTEU’s challenge is “an impermissible attempt to enlist the courts in supervising the day-to-day workings of the Executive.” But the Democratic lawmakers said Trump officials including acting CFPB chief Russell Vought are the ones who overstepped their constitutional limits by attempting to gut the agency.

“Since its creation, the CFPB has successfully protected consumers from unfair and predatory practices in the financial services industry,” the lawmakers said in the brief. “Appellants cite no constitutional or statutory power authorizing their steps toward eliminating the Bureau against Congress’s express wishes because there is none.”

New legislation would be required to give the president authority to reorganize executive agencies such the CFPB, and Congress has often limited the power of the executive branch to abolish or overhaul agencies, according to the amicus brief.

The specific abuses that caused the 2008 financial crisis informed the way the CFPB was set up, meaning that a new administration with different priorities can’t shirk certain key agency obligations without triggering “disastrous” consequences, the lawmakers said in their brief.

“Congress also wanted this single agency to be readily equipped and available to respond to American consumers’ concerns,” they said. “Appellants’ lawless attempt to reduce the Bureau to a hollow shell—incapable as a practical matter of fulfilling its statutory mandates—is flatly inconsistent with Congress’s express requirement that the Bureau exist.”

Additional Briefs

Other groups filed amicus briefs late Friday backing the NTEU and its co-plaintiffs.

Consumer and legal advocacy groups argued the injunction is necessary to preserve CFPB safeguards for populations such as veterans and older adults.

Former CFPB officials from several previous administrations said the Trump team’s moves were “highly irregular.”

And a group of more than 20 states said their residents would suffer significant hardship if the Trump administration is allowed to dismantle the CFPB and its statutorily mandated functions such as a consumer complaint system.

The case is NTEU v. Vought, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05091, amicus briefs 5/9/25.