Thirty-Seven AGs Back Cordray for CFPB Director

In a rare move, 37 state attorneys general backed ""Consumer Financial Protection Bureau"":http://www.consumerfinance.gov/ (CFPB) director-nominee Richard Cordray in a ""Tuesday letter"":http://signon.s3.amazonaws.com/20111018.signon.Cordray_Letter_of_Support.pdf addressed to Senate party leaders and lawmakers.

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Writing on behalf of the ""National Association of Attorneys General"":http://www.naag.org/about_naag.php (NAAG), elected state officials commended the embattled nominee as ""both brilliant and balanced,"" describing Cordray as someone with ""the knowledge, experience and leadership skills to serve in this important position.""

Washington attorney general and NAAG president Rob McKenna led the effort with other group officials, who offered that ""[s]ome of us may disagree with aspects of the Dodd-Frank legislation. But we are united in our belief that Mr. Cordray is very well qualified to carry out the responsibilities"" required of the CFPB's first director.

The letter praised Cordray for his background in education and the law, highlighting his past role as an Ohio state attorney general and degrees from the ""University of Oxford"":http://www.ox.ac.uk/ and ""University of Chicago Law School"":http://www.law.uchicago.edu/.

The Senate Banking Committee ""cleared Cordray along party lines for a full chamber vote"":https://themreport.com/articles/senate-committee-approves-cfpb-nominee-for-full-vote-2011-10-06 in early October ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô

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a move that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle used to condemn the other party for political theater.

Ranking member ""Sen. Richard Shelby"":http://shelby.senate.gov/public/ (R-Alabama) responded to his nomination by saying in a ""statement"":http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ID=66ac13f9-4d8c-4e58-9033-01cf5edf5f30, ""No nominee for the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection should receive consideration until the Democrats are ready to stop playing politics and work with us to make the Bureau accountable.""

He vowed to uphold the pledge he and 43 other Republican lawmakers signed earlier this year to block any single nominee for CFPB director. For their part, Senate Democrats inked their names to a 2010 letter that called for the confirmation of a nominee to head up the agency.

Cordray succeeds by advancing to the confirmation hearing where his predecessor, ""Elizabeth Warren"":http://elizabethwarren.com/, now running to unseat ""Sen. Scott Brown"":http://www.scottbrown.com/splash/splash.php (R-Massachusetts), fell under the wheel of a highly partisan political process.

""Mark Calabria"":http://www.cato.org/people/mark-calabria, director of financial regulation studies with the conservative-leaning ""Cato Institute"":http://www.cato.org/ and a former Shelby staffer on the Senate Banking Committee, told _MReport_ in a past interview that he feels Cordray ""has very little chance of making it"" past the gridlocked upper chamber.

""I think in all likelihood the Senate will stay in session from now until 2013, which will make recess appointments all but impossible,"" he said. ""So the odds for his conformation are very low... I would give it a 30-percent chance of success.""

Asked about Cordray's next moves in the event that his nomination bid fails, he said that he could see ""Cordray returning to Ohio for reelection in 2013.""

The Senate still needs to schedule a confirmation hearing for the CFPB director-nominee.