Retired Chief Judge Susan G. Braden, formerly of the United States Court of Federal Claims, has written Quo Vadis—Federal Trade Commission? She argues that the Department of Justice should absorb the FTC. The paper was written before the Court decided Trump v. Slaughter but it anticipated the result. This proposal reminds me of how the Fed had a significant consumer protection mission before Congress created the CFPB but because the Fed’s most important task is monetary policy, consumer protection became a stepchild there–so much so that the Fed ignored its authority to prevent the kind of lending that led to the Great Recession. Congress responded by establishing the CFPB and shifting much of the Fed’s consumer protection authority to the CFPB for various reasons, one of which was to make sure consumer protection didn’t get lost. I fear it would be the same if the DOJ took over the FTC’s functions. Even if the FTC is no longer an independent agency, Congress should retain it as a separate agency to ensure consumer protection receives the attention consumers need it to have.
