Senate panel approves Trump’s nominee for consumer watchdog
WASHINGTON » The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday approved Kathy Kraninger as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as Republicans overlooked the protests of Democrats who said President Donald Trump’s nominee is unqualified to lead the consumer watchdog.
Kraninger’s nomination received approval in a 13-12 party-line vote. The nomination now goes to the full Senate for a vote, where Senate Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, arguably Kraninger’s biggest critic, has vowed to block her nomination.
Kraninger, currently a midlevel executive in the Office of Management and Budget, was an unknown before Trump’s nomination. She works directly under Mick Mulvaney, who is both Trump’s budget director and has been acting director of the CFPB since late November.
Mulvaney has moved to roll back many of the rules and regulations established by the CFPB, which was formed in the wake of the financial crisis. Kraninger has given little guidance on how she plans to run the bureau, but she’s expected to operate the bureau similarly to Mulvaney. She has never worked in financial services.
“Will Kathy Kraninger stand up against powerful special interests and fight for service members, students and seniors that need a champion? Unfortunately, the answer is no,” said Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nevada.
Democrats tried to derail Kraninger’s nomination by focusing on her work in the White House’s budget office, where she handled the budgets for the Department of Homeland Security and several other large agencies. DHS is the department in charge of the policy to separate children from their parents at the border and the disaster recovery from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, where thousands of Puerto Ricans died and many parts of the island went without electricity for months.
Kraninger dodged many questions regarding these two issues during her nomination hearing last month, and her written responses to Senators’ questions were equally evasive.