The Senate will block President Barack Obama's pick to lead a new U.S. consumer watchdog agency if the White House snubs structural changes, GOP lawmakers say.
Forty-four senators led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala., ranking Republican on the banking committee, vow to reject former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, Obama's nominee to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, unless the White House agrees to make significant changes to the agency's structure and funding.
Forty-four senators is enough to block the confirmation. All Senate confirmations must pass by a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes.
The structural changes the Republicans demand include changing its leadership from a single director to a five-member commission, the Republican senators say.
"Until President Obama addresses our concerns by supporting a few reasonable structural changes, we will not confirm anyone to lead it," Shelby said in a statement Sunday after the White House said Obama would nominate Cordray about 1 p.m. EDT Monday.
"No accountability, no confirmation," Shelby's statement said.
McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told The Washington Post the White House had not "addressed our concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability."
Obama would like Cordray confirmed before the Senate goes on summer recess in a couple of weeks, the Post said.
Administration officials said Obama might make some concessions to win Cordray's confirmation but won't support a commission structure, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Republicans could also prevent the White House from appointing Cordray during the recess by blocking the Senate from adjourning, the Post said.
If no director is in place when the bureau opens Thursday, it won't be able to exercise many of its powers, including the ability to write new rules and oversee financial firms other than banks, officials said.
The bureau is designed to police financial products such as credit cards and mortgages.
Cordray, 52, who in 1987 was a five-time undefeated "Jeopardy!" champion, is currently the agency's enforcement director.
He attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor in chief of its law review. He also clerked for Supreme Court justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy.
He gained national attention as Ohio's attorney general for filing lawsuits against mortgage lenders accused of shoddy foreclosure practices.
The agency is a hallmark of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, created after the 2008 financial crisis to tame Wall Street, prevent taxpayer bailouts and protect consumers.
It has the ability to write new consumer-protection rules, enforce more than a dozen existing federal consumer-finance laws, review banks' books and records and investigate consumer complaints.
The bureau will be an independent unit located inside and funded by the U.S. Federal Reserve, with interim affiliation with the U.S. Treasury.
