Collins casts deciding vote for CFPB nominee who helped separate immigrant families
Senator Susan Collins fell in line with the Senate GOP on Thursday in a 50-49 vote to confirm Kathleen Kraninger to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The nomination was opposed by Maine’s independent Senator Angus King and Senate Democrats, who raised concerns about Kraninger’s lack of experience in consumer protection, her role in implementing the Trump administration’s family separation policy, and her involvement in botched hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico.
Previously, Kraninger held a mid-level White House position at the Office of Management and Budget under director Mick Mulvaney, whom President Donald Trump installed as the head the CFPB temporarily after the resignation of the bureau’s first director, Richard Cordray. In that role, she oversaw the budgets for seven Cabinet departments, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
Democrats see Kraninger as a protégé to Mulvaney, who was vocally opposed to the mission of the bureau, which was created in the wake on the 2008 financial meltdown, as a watchdog against financial sector fraud. Mulvaney, who once described the bureau as a “sick, sad” joke, has scaled back the bureau’s enforcement efforts by seeking to relax restrictions on payday lenders, freezing data collection from the banking industry and curbing the CFPB’s independence by giving Congress control over its spending.
“[Kraninger] has never, I repeat never, worked on consumer protection issues either in public service or the private sector,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during the hearings. “She has no record of standing up for consumers.”
To Warren, who was the special advisor for the bureau after its creation in 2011, Kraninger’s lack of experience in consumer advocacy was indication enough that she would further erode the bureau’s oversight and enforcement functions.
Despite her decisive vote in favor of Kraninger, Collins also previously raised concern about her inexperience, saying after her nomination that “it would be to [Kraninger’s] advantage to have some sort of consumer protection or financial background.”
Kraninger was involved in shaping Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’ and botched relief in Puerto Rico
Democrats also raised concerns about Kraninger’s role as associate director at the White House budget office and her involvement in implementing the Trump administration’s family separation policy, which, according to recent reports, has split more than 6,000 people, including at least 3,000 children, from relatives since last spring.
Collins has claimed that she does not approve of President Donald Trump’s family immigration policy. After opposing Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) Keep Families Together Act in June on the grounds that it was “too broad,” Collins instead called for an even broader immigration overhaul.
Families are still being seperated and the Trump administration has plans to renew the policy now that public and media attention to the issue has diminished.
During the confirmation hearing, Democrats also highlighted Kraninger’s role in the bungled relief efforts in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
As the person who oversaw the budgets for the Department of Justice and FEMA, Democrats contend that Kraninger played a sizable role in shaping both the relief and family separation policies.
“Ms. Kraninger was one of the officials responsible for managing and implementing President Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance Policy,'” Sen. Warren said. “The policy resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe in which thousands of children were ripped from the arms of their mommas and daddies and thrown into cages.”
(Photo: New CFPB director Kathleen Kraninger during her confirmation hearing.)
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