One recent court ruling would say so.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is unconstitutionally structured. How is this related to the CFPB you ask? Well, the FHFA is almost identically structured to the CFPB.
For one, both agencies are controlled by a sole director. Unlike most independent federal agencies, the FHFA and CFPB are not checked by either fellow commissioners or board members, making the director of the agency virtually supreme.
Secondly, both sole directors can only be removed by the President “for cause” as opposed to “at will.” This means that either the director has to willingly step down, break the law, or do something so outlandish that the President would be forced to remove him or her.
But perhaps most importantly, both the FHFA and the CFPB fall outside the usual appropriation process. The FHFA receives funding directly from its regulated entities while the CFPB receives its funding directly from the Federal Reserve. Both circumvent the usual appropriation process to staff and maintain the agencies day to day processes, ensuring their insulation from Congressional control.
The Fifth Circuit’s recent ruling stated that the FHFA’s structure is too isolated from Presidential control and executive oversight, thus the Agency’s structure violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. This ruling sparks interest into the Constitutionality of the CFPB. If both the Agency and Bureau are similarly structured and one of them was just ruled unconstitutional, then shouldn’t the other?