EDITORIAL: Consumer watchdog: Ex-Ohio AG is a smart choice for key agency

EDITORIAL: Consumer Watchdog: Ex-Ohio AG is a smart choice for the key agency

July 25, 2011 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX – The election of former Attorney General of Ohio Richard Cordray to run the Federal Office of Consumer Financial Protection could add a little something of the promise of President Barack Obama to protect consumers by unscrupulous lenders. That is, unless the Senate Republicans to pull the teeth of the agency and the price to confirm the nominee of the president.

Mr. Cordray reputation as an advocate for consumers is that it's hard, intelligent and honest. As Attorney General of Ohio, successfully sued the financial giants Bank of America and American International Group. And he faced the great values, rating agencies. In all, recovered over $ 2 billion for Ohio retirees, investors and business owners.

A graduate of Michigan State University, Mr. Cordray received a master's degree in economics from Oxford University and law degree from the University of Chicago, where he was editor in chief of the Law Review. It is considered by many as more of an academic than political. In 2010, Businesweek.com said: "His ethics are above reproach."

At the same time, not an ideologue or idealistic dreamer. David Rothstein, a researcher at Ohio policy issues and member of the New America Foundation – both nonpartisan research centers – said that the five-time Jeopardy! Champion bases its conclusions on research, not ideology.

"I do not think all banks are bad, and does not believe that all financial products are bad," Mr. Rothstein said the Huffington Post. "But if he sees a problem and identified through the research, which will get it."

That makes financial institutions and politicians that serve them nervous. So Senate Republicans have threatened not to confirm the age of 52, Grove City, Ohio, unless they get say changes to improve accountability and transparency, but might actually dilute the effectiveness of the office consumer, which opened Thursday.

The Republican-led House has approved a bill to strengthen the veto power of the Financial Stability Oversight Council over the bureau’s decisions. It would also install a five-member commission rather than a single director and delay transfer of powers to the new agency.

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor who was the driving force behind the bureau and was the favorite of many liberal Democrats to head it, said last week that Republicans who want to «cripple» the consumer bureau should «remember that the financial crisis — and the recession and job losses that it sparked — began one lousy mortgage at a time.»

Despite some tough talk, Washington has not held financial institutions responsible for abusive lending practices that contributed to the nation’s economic crisis. The consumer bureau, created by the 2008 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which Republicans opposed, changes that.

Mr. Cordray, a former Ohio state treasurer, county treasurer and state representative, will be as strong a voice for average Americans as he was for ordinary people in Ohio.

The Jeopardy! clue: The right man for the job. The question: Who is Richard Cordray?

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