U.S. Chamber of Commerce, banks sue CFPB in Trump-packed courts in a bid to keep discriminating

As usual, far-right groups are suing the Biden administration for doing something to help people and as usual, they’re doing it in the state that’s most amenable: Texas. It’s basically circuit shopping; find a plaintiff who can say they are harmed by something the administration does, and make sure they’re in a state full of friendly, conservatives judges. That way they can be assured that appeals go their way and they have a fast-track to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they know the trash majority will give them what they want. In this case, it’s giving the big banks and other financial services free rein to discriminate against customers.

Of course the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is suing to make sure banks can keep practices that are discriminatory, along with banking trade groups. At issue is a change the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) made to its supervisory operations back in March. The CFPB expanded the scope of financial institution practices they’ll look at for unfair practices, including “financial institutions’ decision-making in advertising, pricing, and other area,” it announced in the spring.

“When a person is denied access to a bank account because of their religion or race, this is unambiguously unfair,” said CFPB director Rohit Chopra. “We will be expanding our anti-discrimination efforts to combat discriminatory practices across the board in consumer finance.”