Supreme Court sides with Democrats in ruling on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The U.S. Supreme Court voted to reject a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's authority in a massive decision this past week.

The CFPB has been tied down in substantial litigation but, with the Supreme Court's blessing, will begin a campaign against payday lenders and other companies that offer high-cost, short-term loans to poor borrowers.

This case goes back to 2017 when the CFPB issued rules forbidding payday lenders from offering expensive loans to low-income Americans who could not afford to pay the money back.

Payday lenders pushed back and sued the CFPB claiming that the funding structure was unconstitutional. Now seven years later the Supreme Court has finally determined that the funding was constitutional and the CFPB can continue.

Rohit Chopra, the director of the CFPB, issued a statement saying, "What we saw during the pendency of the Supreme Court case was a lot of corporate defendants and individuals refusing to accept that they had to comply with the law. For victims of these companies, that has all been on hold. So what we are doing right now is getting all of it restarted.”

The fight isn't over entirely, as the CFPB's proposed rules can also be challenged by payday lenders. It remains to be seen what impact the CFPB will have in an era of increasing economic uncertainty.