Advocacy group assesses financial services-related floor votes in 119th Congress

Americans for Financial Reform published a report card on how members of Congress have voted so far in this session on financial services issues. The report documents member votes on CFPB-related legislation, including on the 2025 resolutions that repealed agency regulations. It also covers members’ floor votes on crypto-related legislation, including the Genius Act and […]

Alisher Juzgenbayev Note: The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection in an Era of Dual Retrenchment

Alisher Juzgenbayev, a J.D./Ph.D. Candidate at Northwestern, has written The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection in an Era of Dual Retrenchment, 120 Nw. L. Rev. 1449 (2026). Here’s the abstract: Recent developments, including reductions in the federal workforce, effective suspension of certain enforcement activities, and attempted centralization of independent agency rulemaking in the White House, have […]

Report that switching from opt-in to opt-out negative option increases enrollment fivefold

According to the complaint in Fish v. Entrata Inc., when Property Management Companies (PMCs)–landlords–switched from offering a product on an opt-in basis to offering tenants the product for free for a month, followed by a negative option opt-out, it had a dramatic effect on sales: 9. The RentDynamics website explains to PMCs that the “opt-out” […]

Could DOJ’s attack on citizen suits in environmental cases lead to the end of private consumer suits the government opposes?

That is one of the questions Georgetown’s Steve Vladeck raises in today’s edition of his One First newsletter. Some background: the Department of Justice has made various arguments in an environmental case against the lawfulness of citizen suits to enforce environmental laws. Some of the arguments are not relevant to private claims to enforce consumer […]

Richard Frankel essay: Addressing Mandatory Arbitration in an Age of Federal Dysfunction

At 38 Loyola Consumer Law Review 183 (2026). Here’s the abstract: The second Trump Administration has waged war against consumers and against the federal agencies that seek to protect consumers. It has tried to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, expand the President’s authority to exert iron-fisted control over agency directors, and significantly shrink the federal workforce that in the […]

CFPB Director Nominee Brian Johnson 2023 testimony gives clues as to his views

Back in 2023, Brian Johnson testified before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy during a hearing on the CFPB. The testimony offers clues as to what Johnson thinks. It includes a long list of items where Johnson seems to think the Bureau had gone astray. I picked out four […]