Today the Senate Judiciary Committee kicks off the nomination hearing for Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy left open on the Supreme Court when Justice Scalia passed away. Assuming he ultimately gets approved by the Senate, there are few individuals who will have as direct and immediate impact on what your credit union can and can’t do for decades to come. This is not simply because he will be the fifth (presumably more conservative) vote on the court, or because he is the first of what could be multiple Trump nominees pushing the court further to the right, but because there is a plethora of outstanding legal issues that need to be resolved in the next few years.

Here are some of the big ones:

The structure of the CFPB- As readers of this blog will know the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit is set to reconsider En banc, whether the CFPB as structured is constitutional. Early this year, a panel of the same court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the CFPB to be overseen by a single director, who doesn’t serve at the pleasure of the president. Late last week, the Trump Administration submitted a brief arguing that this decision should be upheld. If the court’s earlier decision is upheld, the Trump Administration will have all the authority it needs to effectively fire Director Richard Cordray. However, win or lose this case will undoubtedly be heard by the Supreme Court with Gorsuch, who is no fan of regulatory overreach on the bench.

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