A published report says that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell [R-Ky.], is planning on putting the nomination of Kathy Kraninger before the full Senate today to confirm her as the next director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. It is expected that Kraninger’s nomination will pass the Senate and she will be confirmed as the next director, replacing Mick Mulvaney, who has been the agency’s acting director for the past year.
Mulvaney was named acting director following the resignation of Richard Cordray, who left the BCFP to run for governor of Ohio.
Sen. McConnell has scheduled floor time today for the vote, in which Kraninger is expected to be narrowly confirmed. Democrats, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.], have been working hard at trying to keep Kraninger from being confirmed, citing her lack of consumer protection experience and her ties to several failed government programs while Kraninger was an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget.
Kraninger was confirmed by the Senate Banking Committee in August in a 13-12 vote along party lines, and a cloture motion to limit debate on her nomination passed 50-49. The vote on her full nomination is expected to be just as close.
Kraninger is expected to continue to push the BCFP in the direction that Mulvaney has pointed the agency, with fewer enforcement actions and more emphasis on educating consumers.
Financial services trade groups, including ACA International, have supported Kraninger’s nomination to be the BCFP’s next director.
