Richard Cordray Makes Run for Ohio Governor Official

Well, this may be our last insideARM article about former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray. With a few tweets and a live announcement from a local Ohio restaurant, he officially launched his run yesterday for Ohio Governor, ending - literally - years of speculation. Here is some of the fun:

...and the more official:

As we've written about extensively, after a great deal of rumor and speculation, Cordray finally announced in November that he would leave the CFPB before the end of his term (which would have been July 2018). That announcement kicked off a firestorm of controversy over who would lead the bureau in the interim, while President Trump nominates a new leader and the Senate moves through the process of confirmation. While Trump's interim pick, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, takes initial actions, like this one to freeze the bureau's data collection activities, this one to hold... and then release payments to fraud victims, and this one to 1) reverse an enforcement action that was already won (the company just hadn't yet paid the fine), and 2) suggest that the bureau might be backing off its prior - very broad - approach to Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs).

Time will tell... perhaps quickly... what Richard Cordray's consumer protection legacy will be. We will see whether a Republican Administration and Congress will be willing and able to dismantle the agency to the extent one no longer recognizes the former Director's influence.

I'll add this one thing:

Hey folks, don't throw the debt collection baby out with the bathwater. This industry really needs a clear set of rules that allows collectors to communicate with consumers in accordance with their preferences! #nobodyopensthemailanymore, #nobodyanswersthephoneanymore

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