Rohit Chopra, President Biden’s nominee to lead the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), looks to be close to approval by the Senate, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Senate’s 49-48 vote on Tuesday (Sept. 21) for Chopra’s nomination to finally get out of the Senate Banking Committee signals a win over Republican opposition. Chopra’s nomination had been sitting in the Senate Banking Committee since March without being voted on. Chopra is now expected to be nominated finally by next week, WSJ predicts.
Tuesday’s vote came down party lines, showing that the CFPB, which was created after the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009, is still a partisan arena. Democrats have hoped for the agency to fight excesses in the finance industry, while Republicans and Wall Street businesses have seen the agency as holding too much influence over the economy and wielding an overabundance of government regulation.
The Senate Banking Committee voted 12-12 along partisan lines back in March. Because the votes were evenly divided, the rules dictate that a motion from the majority leader could advance the vote to the Senate floor.
In March, Chopra told Senate lawmakers that as head of the CFPB, he would fight for Americans who are struggling with debt as the pandemic stretches on, and would work to protect them from potential abuses by lenders or threats to data privacy.
The CFPB recently reported on the risk millions of Americans face as the federal and state relief programs wind down after a year and a half of the pandemic. Looking into how those programs affected people, particularly lower-income or minority residents, the agency found that many people had been lifted up by the relief and would likely be “left behind now.”
Advertisement: Scroll to Continue
Related news: CFPB: Millions of Renters at Risk Without COVID Relief
