Waters raises objections to ‘abusive’ subpoena process

By Katalina M. Bianco, J.D.

Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, is making it clear that she has “serious concerns” about the Republican majority’s “newest effort to undermine” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through the GOP’s “unilateral subpoena authority.” Waters expressed her concerns in a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).

In her letter, Waters said that she was disturbed by a new process regarding the issuance of subpoenas that affords the CFPB only two weeks to respond to requests for information “before facing the threat of an automatic, unilateral Congressional subpoena. If the Bureau’s responses do not satisfy the arbitrary demands of the majority, a subpoena will be issued.”

Waters’ letter comes as Hensarling amended oversight rules earlier this year, which now vest unilateral subpoena authority with the Committee Chair for the first time in its 150-year history. The Ranking Member noted in the letter that, “in the history of the United States Congress, there have only been three Members to exercise this type of unilateral authority, including Senator Joe McCarthy, who led investigations that are generally considered to be the most partisan, unfair and widely discredited in modern American history.” 

“It is undeniable that substantive oversight is one of the most important functions of Congress. But the coercive use of a Congressional subpoena cannot be justified in the absence of thoughtful deliberation,” Waters wrote. The lawmaker told Hensarling that Republicans have worked to “drain the staff time and resources of the CFPB by bogging it down with a constant barrage of document requests.” Within the past year, the bureau received 30 inquiries from Committee Republicans, including at least 73 separate and extensive document requests, the legislator said. “Moreover, these numbers do not include the hundreds of additional pages of documents requested by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, by Committees in the Senate or from individual Members,” Waters wrote.

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