My WSJ op-ed with Stone Washington on CFPB censorship in Chicago
CFPB attempts to punish radio-podcast speech on Chicago neighborhood crime
Hello my VIPs and happy Coronation Day to those of you in and from the UK!
Wanted to share my recent Wall Street Journal op-ed (here is the link), co-authored with my Competitive Enterprise Institute colleague Stone Washington, on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s disturbing new assault on the free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Created by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul and tasked with enforcing both consumer protection and antidiscrimination laws throughout the consumer finance sector, the CFPB is now trying to “protect” us from useful speech about crime in neighborhoods.
The CFPB has hauled into court small mortgage lender Townstone Financial for the words of its associates on a radio show and podcast warning of “hoodlums” on Chicago’s South side and saying the police are keeping the area from turning into a “war zone.” The CFPB incredibly accuses Townstone of “unlawful discrimination” because of these words, claiming that hearing them “would discourage African-American prospective applicants from applying for mortgage loans.” Never mind that even Chicago’s progressive Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson has used similar language about neighborhood crime in speaking of having to shield his children “from bullets that fly right outside our front door.”
As Stone and I note in the piece, this attempt to apply antidiscrimination laws to speech made to a general audience in a mass-media venue, rather than to individual customers or employees in a workplace, sets a horrific precedent: “Under the CFPB’s interpretation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, anyone employed by or associated with a consumer finance firm who makes a random comment on social media could be subject to punishment by the agency. The same could even be true for a company employee who likes a tweet or forwards a post that the CFPB believes would ‘discourage’ some unknown prospective applicant from applying for credit.
Here again is the link to our WSJ op-ed. Here is a good letter the WSJ published in reply to our piece by Steve Simpson of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is challenging the CFPB on behalf of Townstone, pointing out the further troubling aspect that the CFPB is pursuing this case without finding a single individual consumer allegedly offended by Townstone’s over-the-air speech.
In keeping with my promise to end my Substack posts to you with music, here is an awesome version of the American Songbook standard “Chicago (Toddlin’ Town)”. It is performed here by a combination of greats, as it is sung by Tony Bennett with instrumentation by Count Basie and his orchestra. I’ve always loved the city of Chicago, and I am working to see that it and other great U.S. cities are better served by federal, state and local policies.
All best and have a royally good day!
John
John Berlau
Senior Fellow & Director of Finance Policy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Author of George Washington, Entrepreneur (St. Martin’s) https://www.amazon.com/George-Washington-Entrepreneur-Founding-Business/dp/1250172608
Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/jberlau