Congress

‘Delete CFPB’: Musk calls for elimination of consumer bureau

Published

7 days ago

November 27, 2024

Elon Musk said Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be abolished, calling for the elimination of an agency that would potentially regulate the future payments business of the Musk-owned X platform.

“Delete CFPB,” Musk, who is leading an effort on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump to shrink the size of the federal government, wrote in a post on X. “There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.”

Trump on the campaign trail called for easing regulation of the financial industry generally but didn’t explicitly call for the elimination of the CFPB, which Republicans have railed against for years. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint, which Trump sought to distance himself from during the campaign, recommended the agency be shut down.

Trump is widely expected to rein in the Biden-era CFPB’s regulatory agenda and ease enforcement against companies, as he did during his first term in office. But eliminating the agency entirely, as Musk appears to be proposing, would require an act of Congress.

Republicans and the financial industry have long targeted the CFPB for what they consider its overly aggressive regulation, though efforts to take down the agency in Congress and in the courts have largely been unsuccessful. GOP lawmakers, even under Republican control, have lacked the votes to eliminate or defund the CFPB. And more recently the Supreme Court earlier this year upheld the agency’s funding structure as constitutional.

Musk’s statement comes less than a week after the CFPB finalized a regulation that would expand its oversight of big tech companies that offer payment and digital wallet apps. That would potentially include X, which has explored ways to enter the payments business.

Musk said when he purchased X, previously known as Twitter, that he wanted to transform the site into an “everything app” that included the ability of users to store money and send payments. Since then, X Payments has obtained licenses to transmit payments from dozens of state regulators.

The CFPB declined to comment. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Robert Weissman, the co-president of Public Citizen, a progressive watchdog group, criticized Musk’s call to eliminate the CFPB as “intolerable corruption.”

“Asking the world’s richest person, with a direct interest in a wide range of business lines, to run a project to review the federal government’s overall operations is absurd and fundamentally corrupt — and this issue highlights exactly why,” Weissman said in a statement.

Musk’s post came in response to a video clip of the prominent investor Marc Andreessen telling podcaster Joe Rogan that he believes that the CFPB was “terrorizing” tech firms and start-ups that want to compete with big banks.

Andreessen’s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, invested in a company, LendUp Loans that was shut down by the CFPB over allegations of illegal marketing and fair lending violations. At the time, the CFPB noted that the company, which pitched itself as a payday lender alternative, had been backed by Andreessen’s firm, among other prominent venture capitalists.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Andreessen is among the Silicon Valley moguls who have been involved in the planning for the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump advisory panel helmed by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Congress

Top House GOP super PAC taps new president

Published

1 hour ago

December 4, 2024

Blue Light Newsroom

Chris Winkelman, the top staffer at the House Republican campaign arm, will be the new president of the Congressional Leadership Fund.

Winkelman will replace Dan Conston, who has led the super PAC for six years and announced Monday he will be stepping down. CLF, the largest House GOP super PAC, is endorsed by Speaker Mike Johnson.

As its leader, Winkelman will court major party donors and direct hundreds of millions of dollars in ad spending to help Republicans grow their narrow majority. He spent three cycles as general counsel for the National Republican Congressional Committee before taking over as its executive director in 2023.

His tenure at the NRCC has given him strong relationships with members and the chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.). And he is known to be close with Johnson, who assumed the speakership in late 2023.

“Chris Winkelman helped lead the fight to defend Republicans’ House majority at the NRCC and will be a strong force leading the Congressional Leadership Fund to build on those efforts in the next election cycle,” Johnson said in a statement.

Winkelman is an expert on campaign and finance law, including the intersection of party committees, super PACs, nonprofits and candidates’ campaigns.

He was heavily involved in courting donors at the NRCC, but leading the top super PAC will require a different kind of fundraising. CLF and its sister nonprofit, American Action Network, can accept much larger checks from donors. Conston had close ties to the massive GOP donor network, which he developed over his term.

“Chris will be a fantastic leader who will take what’s been built and grow CLF to even greater levels,” Conston said, praising his “sharp political acumen and legal mind.”

Winkelman is known for keeping a lower media profile and working quietly behind the scenes. Republicans maintained their House majority this year despite having a tough map, forced to defend more than a dozen incumbents in districts that Joe Biden won.

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Congress

Democrat Adam Gray flips California swing seat blue

Published

9 hours ago

December 4, 2024

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrat Adam Gray has flipped one of his party’s highest-priority seats in California’s Central Valley, booting Republican Rep. John Duarte from office in the last House race in the country to be called.

Gray, a former state legislator, previously lost to Duarte in 2022 by a margin of 564 votes. This year, his party managed to turn out enough supporters to deal a major blow to the GOP.

Duarte told Blue Light News on Tuesday that he had conceded the race.

Democratic flips of seats held by California GOP Reps. Duarte, Mike Garcia and Michelle Steel have cut into Republicans’ narrow House majority, as will — for the near term — the expected GOP departures of Reps. Michael Waltz of Florida, Elise Stefanik of New York and Matt Gaetz of Florida. For the time being, Republicans hold 220 seats and Democrats 215.

Democrats poured millions into flipping key swing regions like the Central Valley, far outspending Republican incumbents like Duarte.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this story.

Congress

AOC may run for Oversight job

Published

11 hours ago

December 4, 2024

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is weighing a bid for the top Democratic position on the Oversight Committee, she told reporters Tuesday.

“I’m interested,” she said in comments confirmed by a spokesperson.

The outspoken progressive could run for the spot if it’s vacated by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who’s mounting a challenge against Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) for the top Democratic position on the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who had run against Raskin for the job last Congress, declared his bid Tuesday. And Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) could also be in the mix.

It’s the latest salvo in House Democrats’ generational battle over the leadership of congressional committees.

Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), the top Democrat on the Agriculture committee — who has been dogged by questions about his health and ability to lead the panel’s Democrats — faces a strong challenge from Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.). And Rep. Jared Huffman is running to succeed Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who announced Monday he wouldn’t run again to lead the panel’s Democrats.