Richard Cordray has hit the campaign trail in Ohio, where he’s running for governor in 2018. But the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) leaves behind a shoddy legacy in Washington, D.C.
Under Cordray’s watch, the CFPB turned into one of Washington’s most politically biased federal regulators. According to Federal Election Commission data, 100 percent of political contributions made by CFPB employees during the 2016 election cycle were sent to Democratic candidates. Even the Obama administration’s Justice Department was more ideologically diverse. This political bias skewed the agency’s hiring process. According to Ronald Rubin, a former CFPB enforcement attorney, Republican applicants were regularly denied agency jobs. “As screening techniques improved, Republicans were more easily identified and rejected,” Rubin has said, resulting in a culture of “political discrimination.”
And don’t forget the CFPB’s unconstitutional structure. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has claimed the CFPB’s structure “poses a far greater risk of arbitrary decision making and abuse of power, and a far greater threat to individual liberty, than does a multi-member independent agency.”
As Cordray pitches Ohio voters, the CFPB may not be his best selling point.