Is a Leftist-Created Corner of the Bureaucracy Defying the Government Shutdown?

In the middle of a government shutdown, as federal employees are facing layoffs, one agency is reportedly hiring. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—the brainchild of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren while she was still a law professor at Harvard—plans to add legal staff, American Banker reported.

The outlet first reported on Friday about an internal CFPB email dated Oct. 1 that it has two job openings for attorney-advisors in the legal division of the Office of Litigation. This was the first day of the government shutdown. 

Federal courts have painted a murky picture as to how CFPB officials could be removed. But under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law that created the bureau, employees can only be removed for cause. Meanwhile, it is funded through the Federal Reserve Bank, not congressional appropriations. So, by statute, CFPB bureaucrats have certain autonomy from elected officials.

Rep. Andy Barr, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, sponsored the TABS Act, short for Taking Account of Bureaucrats’ Spending Act. The proposal would subject the CFPB to the traditional congressional appropriations process.