Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republican Obstruction Of Qualified Biden Nominees And Moving Forward With The Nomination Of Rohit Chopra To Serve As Director Of The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding Republican obstruction of President Biden’s well-qualified nominees. Senator Schumer announced that today he will file a discharge petition on the nomination of Rohit Chopra to serve as Director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

In addition to keeping our government open and maintaining our government’s full faith and credit, Senate Democrats will also continue working this week on confirming even more of President Biden’s nominees to the bench and to his Administration.

For the information of my colleagues, later today I will move to file a discharge petition on the nomination of Rohit Chopra to serve as Director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, the CFPB was created under the Obama Administration with a simple mandate: protect American consumers from predatory financial practices.

Rohit Chopra is the right man to lead this agency after it languished under the Presidency of Donald Trump. President Trump didn’t really care about the average person being taken advantage of by the big financial institutions, despite his claims he’s a working-class president.

Mr. Chopra has a long history of defending student loan borrowers from unscrupulous for-profit colleges, and already served in the CFPB under President Obama, where he was defending the rights of middle-class people who might be taken advantage of by rapacious institutions. He has the experience, he has the dedication, and he will have the support of Senate Democrats when his nomination is brought to the floor this afternoon or later this week.

Over the next few weeks, Senate Democrats will also move forward on a number of noncontroversial nominees critical to keeping our country safe and advancing American diplomacy abroad. Over the last few months there has been a growing backlog on these nominees due to Republican obstructionism, and it is our hope starting this week we can move to secure their confirmation.

But last week, a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle announced they will seek to delay these nominees for no other reason than to score cheap political points in an effort to win fans on the far-right. It’s no secret: the people leading this are all competing to run for president on the Republican side in 2024. And they’re in feverish—feverish—pursuit of the extreme-right in this country, which they think will help them win a primary.

And so they tie this chamber in a knot, but more importantly jeopardize the security of Americans.

This is unacceptable. Every one of these nominees won bipartisan – if not unanimous – support in committee. That same level of support should continue on the floor.  

The Republicans who are delaying the confirmation of these nominees are deliberately making the American people less safe.

Less safe on the foreign policy side where we need nominees to the Defense and State departments.

Less safe on the domestic side as well, where there is talk of holding up US attorneys, who are in charge of prosecuting federal laws in all the states.

Under normal circumstances these nominees should be dispensed with speedily and without controversy. But because of the self-interest of a few obstructionists, the Senate could be forced to drag out what is normally a simple process. I urge these colleagues to drop their theatrics immediately and allow these nominees to these critical agencies to go through. 

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