Conservatives and payday lending groups are trying a new method to take down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: removing its funding. Thankfully, 22 Democratic Attorneys General are loudly and proudly defending the bureau and all it does to protect consumers from unscrupulous financial institutions.

Back in October, the ultra-conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the independent funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was unconstitutional.

This decision risks destroying everything the CFPB has accomplished – if its funding is unconstitutional, so are all its actions – or so much of the financial services industry hopes. It’s up to the Supreme Court to reconsider this ruling.

If the Supreme Court finds the CFPB’s funding structure unconstitutional, it risks undoing over a decade of consumer protections and dragging us right back to the conditions that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

Twenty two state Attorneys General are asking the Supreme Court to keep the CFPB’s funding intact.

From the amicus brief filed by 22 Attorneys General:

“The CFPB has provided valuable contributions in protecting consumers nationwide, as Congress intended when it responded to the 2008 financial crisis by establishing an independent federal regulator that could set nationwide consumer financial standards and coordinate with the States in their enforcement actions. By invalidating an important CFPB regulation and throwing into doubt the validity of other agency actions taken over the last eleven years, the court of appeals has engendered substantial uncertainty and created the risk of meaningful consumer harms. This Court should not let such a result stand."

Add your name to thank these AG’s for defending the CFPB and consumer protections!