{"id":19689,"date":"2024-05-28T12:47:24","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/28\/explained-clarence-thomas-split-with-conservatives-to-save-elizabeth-warrens-baby\/"},"modified":"2024-05-28T12:47:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:47:24","slug":"explained-clarence-thomas-split-with-conservatives-to-save-elizabeth-warrens-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/28\/explained-clarence-thomas-split-with-conservatives-to-save-elizabeth-warrens-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Explained: Clarence Thomas\u2019 split with conservatives to save \u2018Elizabeth Warren\u2019s baby\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When the Supreme Court decided last week to keep the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) funded, some were surprised that Justice Clarence Thomas split from some of his conservative colleagues, writing the majority opinion to keep the CFPB intact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a 7-2 decision, the court held that Congress uniquely authorized the bureau to draw its funding directly from the\u00a0Federal Reserve System,\u00a0therefore allowing it to bypass the usual funding mechanisms laid out in the appropriations clause of the Constitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The financial watchdog agency bypasses typical congressional appropriations and simply requires the CFPB director to make requests of the Treasury Department for funds as needed. The banking industry parties challenging the CFPB say that is unconstitutional, citing the appropriations clause.<\/p>\n

But the high court\u2019s majority disagreed. \u2018In this case, we must decide the narrow question whether this funding mechanism complies with the Appropriations Clause. We hold that it does,\u2019 the opinion states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018For most federal agencies, Congress provides funding on an annual basis. This annual process forces them to regularly implore Congress to fund their operations for the next year. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is different. The Bureau does not have to petition for funds each year. Instead, Congress authorized the Bureau to draw from the Federal Reserve System the amount its Director deems \u2018reasonably necessary to carry out\u2019 the Bureau\u2019s duties, subject only to an inflation-adjusted cap,\u2019 Thomas explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Although there may be other constitutional checks on Congress\u2019 authority to create and fund an administrative agency, specifying the source and purpose is all the control the Appropriations Clause requires.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The statute that authorizes the Bureau to draw money from the combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System to carry out its duties satisfies the Appropriations Clause,\u2019 the opinion states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The banking associations, which sued the CFPB, Thomas writes \u2018offer no defensible argument that the Appropriations Clause requires more than a law that authorizes the disbursement of specified funds for identified purposes.\u2019<\/p>\n

But Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch strongly dissented, saying, \u2018The Court upholds a novel statutory scheme under which the powerful [CFPB] may bankroll its own agenda without any congressional control or oversight.\u2019<\/p>\n

Thomas, in the majority opinion, fired back, \u2018The dissent accepts that the question in this case is ultimately about the meaning of \u2018Appropriations.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It faults us for consulting dictionaries to ascertain the original public meaning of that word, insisting instead that \u2018Appropriations\u2019 is a \u2018term of art whose meaning has been fleshed out by centuries of history,\u201d Thomas writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018But, as we have explained at length, both preratifcation and postratifcation appropriations practice support our source-and-purpose understanding,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

The CFPB has\u00a0been a thorn in the side of Republicans since Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., helped create it after the 2008 market crash in an effort to protect consumers from financial schemes, with authority to regulate banking and lending agencies via federal rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama said in 2011 that the agency \u2018was Elizabeth\u2019s idea, and through sheer force of will, intelligence, and a bottomless well of energy, she has made, and will continue to make, a profound and positive difference for our country.\u2019<\/p>\n

Former acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney during the Trump administration even called the agency \u2018Elizabeth Warren\u2019s baby.\u2019<\/p>\n

Warren has been critical of the high court since Trump flipped the ideological majority with his appointments of Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.\u00a0In 2021, she called to expand the court, saying that the current court\u00a0\u2018threatens the democratic foundations of our nation.\u2019<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been directly critical of Thomas, accusing him last year of \u2018corruption\u2019 by taking vacations paid for by a GOP mega-donor but not disclosing them. Thomas said he consulted his colleagues and the judicial conference and said he\u2019s followed the ethics rules regarding the reporting of those trips.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital reached out to Warren for comment.<\/p>\n

When the high court ruled in the CFPB\u2019s favor last week, she praised it, saying it \u2018followed the law.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peggy Little, a senior counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) disagreed with the majority\u2019s decision. But she thinks Thomas\u2019 authorship \u2018debunks the idea that all conservatives decide the cases the same way.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I think it\u2019s a healthy corrective to how the media talks about the court,\u2019 she told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added that\u00a0\u2018it would be a mistake for Congress to consider [the decision] a license to set up similar regimes\u2019 and that the high court \u2018might revisit it and see the error of its ways.\u2019<\/p>\n

David B. Rivkin Jr., an appellate and constitutional law attorney and former White House and Justice Department counsel,\u00a0says Thomas \u2018marches to the beat of his own drum.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The notion that the six conservative justices march in lockstep is absurd,\u2019 Rivkin said. \u2018There are distinctive differences not only in how they decide specific cases but in their judicial philosophy. There are numerous permutations of originalism and textualism.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Justice Thomas does what he thinks is right, follows the text and its original intent when it was written, and doesn\u2019t mind if he\u2019s the only dissenting justice,\u2019 John Shu, a constitutional lawyer who worked for both Bush administrations, told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shu co-authored the first white paper criticizing the leadership structure and funding mechanism of the CFPB with former White House counsel Ambassador C. Boyden Gray in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u2018If other justices decide to agree with him, that\u2019s nice, though he\u2019s willing to go it alone,\u2019 Shu observed.\u00a0 \u2018Justice Thomas is a true originalist and textualist, as is Justice Alito, and in this case, they interpret the term \u2018appropriations\u2019 in different ways, which further proves that the justices do not vote in lockstep as some erroneously claim.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Neither Justice Alito nor Justice Thomas are results-oriented, meaning that they do not begin with a preferred outcome in mind and try to come up with some kind of justification later,\u2019 Shu explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Instead, they go where the law\u2019s text and original intent take them, and they don\u2019t concern themselves with political outcomes or backlashes, which is one of the reasons why the Constitution gives federal judges lifetime appointment, to insulate their jobs from political whims,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Supreme Court decided last week to keep the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) funded, some were surprised that Justice Clarence Thomas split from some of his conservative colleagues, writing the majority opinion to keep the CFPB intact.\u00a0 In a 7-2 decision, the court held that Congress uniquely authorized the bureau to draw <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}