White House pushes for confirmation of consumer watchdog nominee (Richard Cordray)

Source: Wash. Post

White House officials on Sunday issued a new report aimed at ramping up pressure on Senate Republicans to support President Obama’s choice to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as key GOP lawmakers renewed their vow to block any nominee unless broad changes are made to the watchdog agency.

The new push by the Obama administration comes as the full Senate is expected to vote Thursday on the nomination of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head the CFPB, which opened in July but is blocked from exercising its full authority until a director is confirmed.

Members of the Senate Banking Committee approved Cordray’s nomination in October in a party-line vote, but 44 of the chamber’s 47 Republicans have penned a letter to Obama pledging to oppose any nominee unless the bureau’s powers are curtailed, a move that all but ensures Cordray will fall short of the 60 votes necessary for confirmation later this week.

In a report released Sunday night, the National Economic Council said the watchdog agency is “hamstrung” because it can’t exercise its full authority in supervising non-bank financial institutions such as payday lenders, credit reporting agencies and debt collectors.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-pushes-for-confirmation-of-consumer-watchdog-nominee/2011/12/04/gIQABLxoTO_story.html

Blind partisan obstructionism, plain and simple. :hi:

Don't let those bastard Republicans stop you or Cordray.

Coup d'etat? Can't recess-appoint unless they actually recess (and they have stopped recessing and gavel into session every couple days when they are off).

Push, kick, potato, potahto.

:kick:

Warren was acting something or other the whole time she worked on this, wasn't she?

He's made interim heads and acting heads all over the place. Why is this different?