Elizabeth Warren pressures Senate GOP on Consumer Bureau blockade

Elizabeth Warren might no longer be in Washington, but she still is finding a way to be a thorn in the side of congressional Republicans.

The architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is gathering support for her successor at the new agency, Richard Cordray, as he works to become its first director. And in doing so, Warren is setting her aim squarely at Senate Republicans.

Warren, who is mulling a 2012 run against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), has established a petition on her exploratory committee's website, inviting signers to pressure GOP members of the Senate Banking Committee to approve Cordray's nomination to be CFPB director.

"The big banks and their army of lobbyists couldn't stop the creation of a new [CFPB], so now they are trying to undermine its work, enlisting their Republicans friends on the Senate Banking Committee," the petition website states. "It's outrageous — and we've got to hold them accountable."

Warren is widely credited with the idea for a bureau devoted to protecting consumers as they shop for financial products. She was tapped by the president to set it up and serve as its public face in the year after it was created as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, in 2010.

But during that time, Warren was subjected to harsh scrutiny by congressional Republicans. President Obama ultimately passed over her and tapped Cordray, one of her top deputies, for the director position.

Cordray, the former Ohio attorney general, does not have as high a profile as Warren, but faces strong opposition from Senate Republicans anyway. A filibuster-proof group of GOP senators announced in May, before Cordray was tapped for the position, that they would block any nominee to head the bureau unless several changes were made to the agency's structure.

Republicans argue the bureau as is lacks accountability and places too much power in the hands of a lone director. They want to see a board of directors run the CFPB, as well as have its budget brought under the congressional appropriations process. They also want other regulators to have stronger veto power over the bureau's rules.