Law firm under CFPB investigation asks high court to decide agency's constitutionality

A law firm in Orange under investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly marketing and selling debt relief services illegally has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether the agency is unconstitutionally structured.

Seila Law LLC, represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP partner and regular high court practitioner Kannon K. Shanmugam, urged the justices Friday to review a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the agency's design, saying the CFPB's single director who can only be fired by the president for cause violates the separation of powers by infringing on the executive's authority.

The conservative legal movement has been eager to see the demise of the Obama-era agency and brainchild of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, arguing it is yet another arm of what they portray as an unruly administrative state.

In 2016, then-D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh ruled the CFPB's leadership structure was unconstitutional, a decision his colleagues later reversed. A federal district judge in New York adopted his reasoning in a similar case last year, continuing the trend of incongruous decisions by federal courts as to whether the agency is permissibly structured.

"The time for this Court to resolve the long-running debate about the constitutionality of the CFPB is now," Shanmugam wrote in Friday's petition. Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 19-7.

-- Nicolas Sonnenburg