Texas Bank Seeks Supreme Court Review of BCFP’s Constitutionality

A Texas bank and two non-profit groups recently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the BCFP.

The petition seeks review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia’s decision rejecting the petitioners’ initial challenge to the BCFP’s structure following the D.C. Circuit’s en banc decision in PHH, which held that the BCFP’s structure is constitutional.  The petition argues that review is warranted on a number of grounds, including the need for the Supreme Court to: (i) rectify PHH’s misconstruction of the Court’s separation of powers cases; (ii) clarify constitutional limits on Congress’s ability to abdicate its power of the purse; (iii) resolve the conflict between PHH and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Collins v. Mnuchin holding that the FHFA is unconstitutionally structured due to its excessive insulation from executive branch oversight, which petitioners argue cannot be reconciled; and (iv) resolve conflicts between PHH and the Court’s separation-of-powers and appointment clause precedents.

A copy of the petition is available here.