Newly installed OMB Director and Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought has moved to curb the abuses of the CFPB by ordering staff to issue no more new rules, to stop new investigations, and to suspend existing investigations and litigations pending a general review of the CFPB’s activities. Vought also has authorized DOGE personnel to audit CFPB’s financial activities, including its payroll.
The National Treasury Employees Union is mightily upset, and it has filed two suits to stop these cease and desists and the audit. The NTEU alleged in the first case
It is substantially likely that these initial directives are a precursor to a purge of CFPB’s workforce, which is now prohibited from fulfilling the agency’s statutory mission[.]
In the second case, the union alleged that the CFPB
granted access, and by extension, disclosed employee records to individuals associated with DOGE without employee consent to such disclosure.
I will be brief, and the NTEU will not find it pleasant.
The union’s first case is entirely speculative as no harm has yet occurred, nor has the union alleged any harm actually has occurred. The suit should be tossed on that ground alone. Regarding the union’s allegation of prohibition, this is pure fantasy: the activities are HIAed, not prohibited, and whether the CFPB is functioning as statutorily required in this context is a political assessment, not one that is justiciable.
In the second case, the union’s allegations are, once again, purely speculative, and no harm has yet occurred, nor has the union alleged any actual harm has occurred. All it has done is raise a series of scary boogieman possibilities for some time in a nebulous future. This case ought to be tossed on that ground as well. Regarding the consent allegation, the CFPB’s employees—all Federal government employees—agreed to have their pay records audited on demand when they signed on to their government employment. That allegation also should be tossed even if the larger case is continued.
The evident frivolousness of these two suits is one more reason why government unions are destructively counterproductive and why the sinecure nature of civil service jobs needs to be severely curtailed.