If you’re a payday lender or a shady mortgage broker, you are probably having a pretty good week. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency tasked with enforcing consumer finance laws, is unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of Trump appointees found in Community Financial Services v. CFPB that the agency’s funding structure violated the constitutional separation of powers.

Wednesday’s ruling could give the Supreme Court an opportunity to destroy a regulatory agency that conservatives and business groups have opposed since the moment of its creation. At risk are a wide variety of regulations to protect Americans from predatory financial practices and the primary vehicle to enforce most federal consumer finance protections. The CFPB’s fate now depends on a Supreme Court that has already signaled a deep antipathy toward the agency itself.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008 as part of the Dodd-Frank reforms for the American financial sector. At the time, Congress sought to consolidate […]