A ruling by a federal appeals court last week could render the recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unconstitutional, and it could also invalidate recent rulings by the National Labor Relations Board.
If Cordray's appointment is voided, it doesn't just mean that the director would have to go through the formal process of getting confirmed by the U.S. Senate, it could unravel a year's worth of rulemaking, including settlements with credit card providers worth hundreds of millions, and other actions by the new agency, which opened in 2011, established by the Dodd-Frank Act.
Even though ...