Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Assn. of America, Ltd.
Supreme Court of the United States5/16/2024
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PRELIMINARY PRINT
Volume 601 U. S. Part 2
Pages 416â471
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
THE SUPREME COURT
May 16, 2024
Page Proof Pending Publication
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
416 OCTOBER TERM, 2023
Syllabus
CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU
et al. v. COMMUNITY FINANCIAL SERVICES
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, LTD., et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the î
fth circuit
No. 22â448. Argued October 3, 2023âDecided May 16, 2024
The Constitution gives Congress control over the public fsc subject to the
command that â[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.â Art. I, § 9, cl. 7. For
most federal agencies, Congress provides funding through annual appro-
priations. For the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, however,
Congress provided a standing source of funding outside the ordinary
annual appropriations process. Specifcally, Congress authorized the
Bureau to draw from the Federal Reserve System an amount that its
Director deems âreasonably necessary to carry outâ the Bureau's duties,
subject only to an infation-adjusted cap. 12 U. S. C. §§ 5497(a)(1), (2).
In this case, several trade associations representing payday lenders and
Page Proof Pending Publication
credit-access businesses challenged regulations issued by the Bureau
pertaining to high-interest consumer loans on statutory and constitu-
tional grounds. As relevant here, the Fifth Circuit accepted the associ-
ations' argument that the Bureau's funding mechanism violates the Ap-
propriations Clause.
Held: Congress' statutory authorization allowing the Bureau to draw money
from the earnings of the Federal Reserve System to carry out the Bu-
reau's duties satisfes the Appropriations Clause. Pp. 424â438, 441.
(a) Under the Appropriations Clause, an appropriation is a law that
authorizes expenditures from a specifed source of public money for des-
ignated purposes. Pp. 424â435.
(1) The Bureau's funding is âdrawn from the Treasuryâ and is
therefore subject to the requirements of the Appropriations Clause.
The issue is whether the Bureau's funding mechanism constitutes an
âAppropriatio[n] made by Law.â The Court concludes that the answer
is yes based on the Constitution's text, the history against which that
text was enacted, and congressional practice immediately following rati-
fcation. Pp. 425â434.
(i) The Constitution's use of the term âappropriationâ provides im-
portant insight into its meaning. The Appropriations Clause itself
specifes that an appropriation must authorize withdrawals from a par-
ticular source, the âTreasury.â And, the proviso limiting Congress'
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 417
Syllabus
power to âraise and support Armiesââthat âno Appropriation of Money
to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Yearsââindicates that
appropriations assign funds for specifc uses. Contemporary dictionary
defnitions support this conclusion as well. The evidence suggests that,
at a minimum, appropriations were understood as a legislative means
of authorizing expenditures from public funds for designated purposes.
Pp. 426â427.
(ii) Pre-founding history supports the conclusion that an identifed
source and purpose are all that is required for a valid appropriation.
The concept of legislative appropriations grew out of the broader strug-
gle between Parliament and the Crown for popular control of the purse
in England. Parliament had little claim to direct how the Crown's he-
reditary revenues were spent, but âextraordinary revenuesâ required
parliamentary authorization because they were fnanced through vari-
ous forms of taxation. In granting these revenues, Parliament began
exercising an attendant power to specify how the Crown used the funds.
The ensuing power struggle culminated in Parliament stripping away
the remnants of the Crown's hereditary revenues. Subsequently, Par-
liament's usual practice was to appropriate government revenue to par-
ticular purposes and to limit the duration of its revenue grants. But,
not all appropriations were time limited. Some statutes granting
Page Proof Pending Publication
money gave the Crown broad discretion regarding how much to spend
within an appropriated sum.
The appropriations practice in the Colonies and early state legisla-
tures was much the same. Many early state constitutions vested the
legislative body with power over appropriations, and state legislative
bodies often opted for open-ended, discretionary appropriations. By
the time of the Constitutional Convention, it was uncontroversial that
the powers to raise and disburse public money would reside in the Leg-
islative Branch. The origins of the Appropriations Clause confrm that
appropriations needed to designate particular revenues for identifed
purposes, but beyond that limit, early legislative bodies exercised a wide
range of discretion. Pp. 427â432.
(iii) The practice of the First Congress also illustrates the source-
and-purpose understanding of appropriations. Many early appropria-
tions laws made annual lump-sum grants for the Government's ex-
penses. As in England, the appropriation of âsums not exceedingâ a
specifed amount provided the Executive discretion over how much to
spend up to a cap. Congress took even more fexible approaches to
appropriations for several early executive agencies, allowing them to
indefnitely fund themselves from revenue collected. For example,
Congress adopted open-ended fee- and commission-based funding
schemes for Customs Service and the Post Offce. Pp. 432â434.
418 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Syllabus
(2) The Bureau's funding statute satisfes the requirements of the
Appropriations Clause. The statute authorizes the Bureau to draw
public funds from a particular sourceââthe combined earnings of the
Federal Reserve Systemââ in an amount not exceeding an infation-
adjusted cap. 12 U. S. C. §§ 5497(a)(1), (2)(A)â(B). And, it specifes the
objects for which the Bureau can use those fundsâto âpay the expenses
of the Bureau in carrying out its duties and responsibilities.â
§ 5497(c)(1). The Bureau's funding mechanism also fts comfortably
within the historical appropriations practice described above. P. 435.
(b) The associations' three principal arguments for why the Bureau's
funding mechanism violates the Appropriations Clause are unpersua-
sive. Pp. 435â438.
(1) The associations argue that the Bureau's funding is not âdrawn
. . . in Consequence of Appropriations made by Lawâ because the agency
itself decides the amount of annual funding to draw from the Federal
Reserve System. But, appropriations of âsums not exceedingâ a cer-
tain amount were commonplace immediately after the founding. Con-
gress did not violate the Appropriations Clause by permitting the
Bureau to decide how much funding to draw up to a cap. Pp. 435â436.
(2) The associations suggest that the Appropriations Clause re-
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quires both Chambers of Congress to periodically agree on an agency's
funding, which ensures that each Chamber reserves the power to unilat-
erally block those funding measures through inaction. While the Con-
stitution expressly provides that âno Appropriation of Moneyâ to sup-
port an army âshall be for a longer Term than two Years,â Art. I, § 8,
cl. 12, the Constitution does not explicitly limit the duration of appropri-
ations for other purposes. The First Congress' practice confrms this
understanding, as appropriations that supplied funding to the Customs
Service and the Post Offce were not time limited. The associations
resist the analogy to the Post Offce and other fee-based agencies, ar-
guing that such agencies do not enjoy the same level of fscal independ-
ence as the Bureau. But, the associations fail to explain the relevance
of that difference to the question whether a law complies with the con-
stitutional imperative of an appropriation. Pp. 436â437.
(3) Finally, the associations contend that if the Bureau's funding
mechanism is consistent with the Appropriations Clause, then Congress
could do the same for anyâor everyâcivilian agency, allowing the Ex-
ecutive to operate free of any meaningful fscal check. But, the Appro-
priations Clause is simply a limitation on Congress' power over the
purse, and the associations err by reducing the power of the purse to
only the principle expressed in the Appropriations Clause. They offer
no defensible argument that the Appropriations Clause requires more
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 419
Syllabus
than a law that authorizes the disbursement of specifed funds for identi-
fed purposes. Pp. 437â438.
51 F. 4th 616, reversed and remanded.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined.
Kagan, J., fled a concurring opinion, in which Sotomayor, Kavanaugh,
and Barrett, JJ., joined, post, p. 441. Jackson, J., fled a concurring
opinion, post, p. 445. Alito, J., fled a dissenting opinion, in which Gor-
such, J., joined, post, p. 447.
Solicitor General Prelogar argued the cause for petition-
ers. With her on the briefs were Principal Deputy Assist-
ant Attorney General Boynton, Deputy Solicitor General
Fletcher, Benjamin W. Snyder, Ephraim A. McDowell,
Mark R. Freeman, Melissa N. Patterson, and Steven Y.
Bressler.
Noel J. Francisco argued the cause for respondents.
With him on the brief were Christian G. Vergonis, Hashim
Page Proof Pending Publication
M. Mooppan, and Yaakov M. Roth.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the State of New
York et al. by Letitia James, Attorney General of New York, Barbara
D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Ester Murdukhayeva, Deputy Solicitor
General, and Dennis Fan, Senior Assistant Solicitor General, and by the
Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Kris Mayes
of Arizona, Rob Bonta of California, Philip J. Weiser of Colorado, William
Tong of Connecticut, Kathleen Jennings of Delaware, Brian L. Schwalb
of the District of Columbia, Anne E. Lopez of Hawaii, Kwame Raoul of
Illinois, Aaron M. Frey of Maine, Anthony G. Brown of Maryland, Andrea
Joy Campbell of Massachusetts, Dana Nessel of Michigan, Keith Ellison
of Minnesota, Aaron D. Ford of Nevada, Matthew J. Platkin of New Jer-
sey, RaĂșl Torrez of New Mexico, Joshua H. Stein of North Carolina, Ellen
F. Rosenblum of Oregon, Michelle A. Henry of Pennsylvania, Peter F.
Neronha of Rhode Island, Charity R. Clark of Vermont, Robert W. Fergu-
son of Washington, and Joshua L. Kaul of Wisconsin; for AARP et al. by
Maame Gyamf, William Alvarado Rivera, and Julie Nepveu; for Com-
munity Development Financial Institutions et al. by Richard A. Koffman;
for Current and Former Members of Congress by Hyland Hunt and Ruth-
anne M. Deutsch; for Farm Action et al. by Rachel L. Fried and Jeffrey
B. Dubner; for Financial Regulation Scholars by Gregory M. Lipper and
420 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Opinion of the Court
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
Our Constitution gives Congress control over the public
fsc, but it specifes that its control must be exercised in a
Adam J. Levitin, pro se; for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law et al. by Damon Hewitt, Jon Greenbaum, Thomas Silverstein,
and Jeffrey Gentes; for Military and Veterans Organizations by Carolyn
E. Shapiro and John Paul Schnapper-Casteras; for the National Treasury
Employees Union by Julie M. Wilson, Paras N. Shah, and Allison C.
Giles; for Professors of History et al. by Elizabeth B. Wydra, Brianne J.
Gorod, and Brian R. Frazelle; for Ten Consumer Advocacy Organizations
by Scott L. Nelson and Allison M. Zieve; and for 90 State and Local Non-
proft Organizations by Seth E. Mermin.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the State of West
Virginia et al. by Patrick Morrisey, Attorney General of West Virginia,
Lindsay S. See, Solicitor General, and Michael R. Williams, Principal
Deputy Solicitor General, by John Scott, Provisional Attorney General of
Texas, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows:
Steve Marshall of Alabama, Treg Taylor of Alaska, Tim Griffn of Arkan-
sas, Ashley Moody of Florida, Chris Carr of Georgia, RaĂșl Labrador of
Page Proof Pending Publication
Idaho, Todd Rokita of Indiana, Brenna Bird of Iowa, Kris Kobach of Kan-
sas, Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Lynn Fitch
of Mississippi, Andrew Bailey of Missouri, Austin Knudsen of Montana,
Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, John M. Formella of New Hampshire,
Drew Wrigley of North Dakota, Dave Yost of Ohio, Gentner Drummond
of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Marty Jackley of South
Dakota, Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee, Sean D. Reyes of Utah, Jason
Miyares of Virginia, and Bridget Hill of Wyoming; for ACA International
by Christopher O. Murray; for America's Future et al. by William J.
Olson and Jeremiah L. Morgan; for the Americans for Prosperity Founda-
tion by Michael Pepson; for the Atlantic Legal Foundation by Lawrence
S. Ebner and Herbert L. Fenster; for the Center for Constitutional Juris-
prudence by John C. Eastman and Anthony T. Caso; for the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States of America et al. by Cameron T. Norris
and Jennifer B. Dickey; for the Credit Union National Association, Inc.,
et al. by Julian R. Ellis, Jr., and Leah C. Dempsey; for Former Members
of Congress by Helgi C. Walker, Lucas C. Townsend, Russell Balikian,
and Lochlan F. Shelfer; for the Foundation for Government Accountability
by Stewart L. Whitson; for the Landmark Legal Foundation by Matthew
C. Forys, Michael J. O'Neill, and Richard P. Hutchison; for the New Civil
Liberties Alliance et al. by Richard A. Samp, Margaret A. Little, and
Mark S. Chenoweth; for the New England Legal Foundation by Mark
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 421
Opinion of the Court
specifc manner. The Appropriations Clause commands that
â[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Conse-
quence of Appropriations made by Law.â Art. I, § 9, cl. 7.
For most federal agencies, Congress provides funding on an
annual basis. This annual process forces them to regularly
implore Congress to fund their operations for the next year.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is different.
The Bureau does not have to petition for funds each year.
Instead, Congress authorized the Bureau to draw from the
Federal Reserve System the amount its Director deems
âreasonably necessary to carry outâ the Bureau's duties, sub-
ject only to an infation-adjusted cap. 124 Stat. 1975, 12
U. S. C. §§ 5497(a)(1), (2). In this case, we must decide the
narrow question whether this funding mechanism complies
with the Appropriations Clause. We hold that it does.
I
A
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Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and
Consumer Protection Act in response to the 2008 fnancial
crisis. 124 Stat. 1376. The Act created an independent
financial regulator within the Federal Reserve System
known as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. 12
U. S. C. § 5491(a). Congress charged the Bureau with en-
forcing consumer fnancial protection laws to ensure âthat
all consumers have access to markets for consumer fnancial
products and services and that markets for consumer fnan-
cial products and services are fair, transparent, and competi-
tive.â § 5511(a). The Act consolidated in the Bureau the
A. Perry, Joshua M. Wesneski, and Daniel B. Winslow; for the Third
Party Payment Processors Association by Misha Tseytlin; for the Wash-
ington Legal Foundation by John M. Masslon II and Cory L. Andrews; for
John Michael Mulvaney by Brunn W. Roysden III; and for 132 Members
of Congress by Jennifer L. Mascott and R. Trent McCotter.
Robert M. Loeb fled a brief for the Mortgage Bankers Association et al.
as amici curiae.
422 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Opinion of the Court
authority to administer 18 existing consumer protection stat-
utes, among them the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the
Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Home Mortgage Disclo-
sure Act of 1975. §§ 5512(a), 5481(12), (14). Additionally,
the Act made it unlawful for those offering consumer fnan-
cial products and services âto engage in any unfair, decep-
tive, or abusive act or practice.â § 5536(a)(1)(B). Congress
vested the Bureau with rulemaking, enforcement, and adju-
dicatory authority over the statutes that it administers.
See §§ 5531(a)â(b), 5581(a)(1)(A), (b) (rulemaking authority);
§§ 5562â5565 (enforcement and adjudicatory authority).
In addition to vesting the Bureau with sweeping authority,
Congress shielded the Bureau from the infuence of the polit-
ical branches. To insulate the Bureau from the President's
control, Congress put a single Director with a 5-year term
at the Bureau's helm and made the Director removable only
for ineffciency, neglect, or malfeasance. §§ 5491(b)â(c).
Page Proof Pending Publication
This Court held in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Finan-
cial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. 197 (2020), that the
combination of single-Director leadership and for-cause re-
moval protection unconstitutionally circumscribed the Pres-
ident's ability to oversee the Executive Branch. Id.,
at 208.
This case involves another one of the Bureau's novel struc-
tural features, one that limits Congress' control. Congress
supplies most federal agencies with the funds necessary for
their operations only on an annual basis, so those agencies
must ask Congress for renewed funding each year. For the
Bureau, however, Congress diminished this accountability by
providing the Bureau a standing source of funding outside
the ordinary annual appropriations process. Each year, the
Bureau may requisition from the earnings of the Federal Re-
serve System âthe amount determined by the [Bureau's] Di-
rector to be reasonably necessary to carry outâ its duties,
subject only to a statutory cap. § 5497(a)(1). The Bureau
cannot request more than 12 percent of the Federal Reserve
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 423
Opinion of the Court
System's total operating expenses as reported in fscal year
2009 (adjusted for infation). §§ 5497(a)(2)(A)â(B). In fscal
year 2022, that cap was about $734 million. See Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, Financial Report of the Con-
sumer Financial Protection Bureau 7 (Fiscal year 2022).
The Bureau can also retain and invest unused funds from
year to year, though the Director must take into account
any surplus when requesting additional funds. §§ 5497(a)(1),
(b)(3), (c).
B
In 2017, the Bureau promulgated a regulation focused on
high-interest consumer loans. See Payday, Vehicle Title,
and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans, 12 CFR pt. 1041
(2018) (Payday Lending Rule). Among other things, the
regulation restricts lenders' ability to obtain loan payments
through preauthorized account access after two unsuccess-
ful withdrawal attempts. Ibid. The Community Financial
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Services Association of America and Consumer Service Alli-
ance of Texas, trade associations that represent payday lend-
ers and credit-access businesses, challenged the Payday
Lending Rule on statutory and constitutional grounds. In
the operative complaint, the associations argued, among
other things, that the Bureau âtakes federal government
money without an appropriations actâ in violation of the
Appropriations Clause. Amended Complaint in No. 1:18â
cvâ00295 (WD Tex.), ECF Doc. 76, p. 30.
The District Court granted summary judgment to the Bu-
reau. As relevant, the court explained that â[t]he Appropri-
ations Clause `means simply that no money can be paid out
of the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of
Congress.' â 558 F. Supp. 3d 350, 364 (WD Tex. 2021) (quot-
ing Offce of Personnel Management v. Richmond, 496 U. S.
414, 424 (1990)). And, because âa statute authorizesâ the
disbursements from the Federal Reserve System's combined
earnings to the Bureau âup to a certain cap,â the District
Court concluded, âthere is no Appropriations Clause issue.â
424 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Opinion of the Court
558 F. Supp. 3d, at 364. On appeal, the associations renewed
their argument that the âBureau's funding mechanism
usurps Congress's role in the appropriation of federal fundsâ
by allowing it to take âfederal money without an appropria-
tions act.â Brief for Appellants in No. 21â50826 (CA5),
p. 28.
The Court of Appeals agreed with this argument and re-
versed. 51 F. 4th 616 (CA5 2022). Drawing on the Consti-
tution's text and history, the court concluded that the Appro-
priations Clause âdoes more than reinforce Congress's power
over fscal matters; it affrmatively obligates Congress to use
that authority `to maintain the boundaries between the
branches and preserve individual liberty from the encroach-
ments of executive power.' â Id., at 637 (quoting Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau v. All Am. Check Cashing,
Inc., 33 F. 4th 218, 231 (CA5 2022) (en banc) (Jones, J., concur-
ring)). By giving the Bureau a âself-actualizing, perpetual
funding mechanism,â the court reasoned, Congress in effect
Page Proof Pending Publication
abandoned this obligation. 51 F. 4th, at 638â639. It was
not enough that Congress enacted the law authorizing the
Bureau's funding because a âlaw alone does not suffceâan
appropriation is required.â Id., at 640. The court thus
held that the Bureau's funding mechanism violates the
Appropriations Clause. Id., at 642.
We granted certiorari to address the narrow question
whether the statute that provides funding to the Bureau vio-
lates the Appropriations Clause. 598 U. S. âââ (2023). We
now reverse.
II
Under the Appropriations Clause, an appropriation is sim-
ply a law that authorizes expenditures from a specifed
source of public money for designated purposes. The stat-
ute that provides the Bureau's funding meets these require-
ments. We therefore conclude that the Bureau's funding
mechanism does not violate the Appropriations Clause.
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 425
Opinion of the Court
A
The Appropriations Clause provides that â[n]o Money shall
be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appro-
priations made by Law.â Art. I, § 9, cl. 7. Textually, the
command is unmistakableââno money can be paid out of the
Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Con-
gress.â Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U. S. 308,
321 (1937). Our decisions have long given the Appropria-
tions Clause this straightforward reading. See, e. g., Offce
of Personnel Management, 496 U. S., at 424 (âMoney may be
paid out only through an appropriation made by law; in other
words, the payment of money from the Treasury must be
authorized by a statuteâ); Reeside v. Walker, 11 How. 272,
291 (1851) (âHowever much money may be in the Treasury
at any one time, not a dollar of it can be used in the payment
of any thing not . . . previously sanctionedâ through an appro-
priation made by Congress).
Page Proof Pending Publication
As a threshold matter, the parties agree that the Bureau's
funding must comply with the Appropriations Clause. The
Appropriations Clause applies to money âdrawn from the
Treasury.â Art. I, § 9, cl. 7. The Bureau draws money from
the Federal Reserve System. 12 U. S. C. § 5497(a)(1). And,
surplus funds in the Federal Reserve System would other-
wise be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury.
§ 289(a)(3)(B). Whatever the scope of the term âTreasuryâ
in the Appropriations Clause, money otherwise destined for
the general fund of the Treasury qualifes. The Bureau's
funding is therefore subject to the requirements of the Ap-
propriations Clause.
The associations' challenge turns solely on whether the
Bureau's funding mechanism constitutes an âAppropriatio[n]
made by Law.â This question divided the courts below.
The District Court concluded that a valid appropriation is
nothing more than a statute that âauthorizes an agency to
receive funds up to a certain cap.â 558 F. Supp. 3d, at 364;
426 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Opinion of the Court
see also Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Law Of-
fces of Crystal Moroney P. C., 63 F. 4th 174, 181 (CA2 2023).
The Court of Appeals, on the other hand, suggested that ap-
propriations must also âmeet the Framers' salutary aims of
separating and checking powers and preserving accountabil-
ity to the people.â 51 F. 4th, at 640. The associations de-
fend this understanding and argue that the statute that pro-
vides the Bureau's funding undermines these aims by
allowing the agency to indefnitely choose its own level of
annual funding, subject only to an illusory cap. That is, the
associations contend that the Bureau's funding mechanism is
too open-ended in duration and amount to satisfy the re-
quirement that there be an âAppropriatio[n] made by Law.â
Based on the Constitution's text, the history against which
that text was enacted, and congressional practice immedi-
ately following ratifcation, we conclude that appropriations
need only identify a source of public funds and authorize the
expenditure of those funds for designated purposes to satisfy
Page Proof Pending Publication
the Appropriations Clause.
1
The Constitution's text requires an âAppropriatio[n] made
by Law.â Art. I, § 9, cl. 7. Our concern is principally with
the meaning of the word âappropriation.â The Constitu-
tion's use of the term âappropriationâ in the Appropriations
Clause and in other Clauses provides important contextual
clues about its meaning. To state the obvious, the Appro-
priations Clause itself makes clear that an appropriation
must authorize withdrawals from a particular sourceâthe
public treasury. It provides that money may be âdrawn
from the Treasuryâ only âin Consequence of Appropriations
made by Law.â Ibid. The section preceding the Appropri-
ations Clause further suggests that appropriations assign
funds for specifc uses: Congress has the power to âraise and
support Armies,â but subject to the limitation that âno Ap-
propriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term
than two Years.â § 8, cl. 12.
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 427
Opinion of the Court
At the time the Constitution was ratifed, âappropriationâ
meant â[t]he act of sequestering, or assigning to a particular
use or person, in exclusion of all others.â 1 N. Webster, An
American Dictionary of the English Language (1828); see
also 1 J. Ash, The New and Complete Dictionary of the Eng-
lish Language (2d ed. 1795) (â[t]he application of something
to a particular useâ); 1 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the
English Language (6th ed. 1785) (â[t]he application of some-
thing to a particular purposeâ); T. Dyche & W. Pardon, A
New General English Dictionary (14th ed. 1771) (âthe ap-
pointing a thing to a particular useâ). In ordinary usage,
then, an appropriation of public money would be a law au-
thorizing the expenditure of particular funds for specifed
ends.
Taken as a whole, this evidence suggests that, at a mini-
mum, appropriations were understood as a legislative means
of authorizing expenditure from a source of public funds for
designated purposes.
Page Proof Pending Publication 2
Pre-founding history supports the conclusion that an iden-
tifed source and purpose are all that is required for a valid
appropriation. The concept of legislative âappropriationsâ
grew out of the broader struggle for popular control of the
purse in England. Throughout the Middle Ages, the King
enjoyed near total fscal independence. At that time, the
King's revenues came largely from hereditary sources, some-
times called âordinaryâ revenues. 1 W. Blackstone, Com-
mentaries on the Laws of England 281 (1771) (Commentar-
ies). These ordinary revenues fowed from many sources,
including the ârents and profts of the demesne lands of the
crown,â id., at 286, and the fnes, forfeitures, and fees âaris-
ing from the king's ordinary courts of justice,â id., at 289.
Because this revenue inhered in the King himself, Parlia-
ment had little claim to direct how it was spent. See F.
Maitland, The Constitutional History of England 430 (1908)
(Maitland).
428 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Opinion of the Court
But, when these unencumbered ordinary revenues did not
satisfy the demands of royal governance, most often during
wartime, the King had to seek what Blackstone called âex-
traordinary revenue.â Commentaries 306. Extraordinary
revenues were fnanced through various forms of taxation
and therefore required parliamentary authorization. Id., at
169, 307; see Magna Charta, ch. 12 (1215), in A. Howard,
Magna Carta: Text and Commentary 40 (rev. ed. 1998). In
granting extraordinary revenues, Parliament began exercis-
ing an attendant power to specify how the Crown used these
funds. Maitland 183â184; see also T. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History: From the Teutonic Conquest
to the Present Time 219, 229 (6th ed. 1905). That is, Parlia-
ment âclaimed the power to appropriate the supplies granted
to the king.â Maitland 183â184.
Conditions in the 17th century shifted the balance of
power toward Parliament. A combination of rising prices
Page Proof Pending Publication
and increasing demands made it so that the King's ordinary
revenues could not satisfy the costs of royal governance,
even in times of peace. D. Keir, The Constitutional History
of Modern Britain Since 1485, pp. 180â181 (6th ed. 1960);
P. Einzig, The Control of the Purse 57 (1959). The King's
fnancial weakness, and Parliament's increasing assertive-
ness in appropriating extraordinary revenues, led to intra-
governmental strife. The ensuing power struggle culmi-
nated in the Glorious Revolution, in which Parliament
stripped away the remnants of the King's hereditary reve-
nues and thereby secured supremacy in fscal matters.
Commentaries 306, 333; Maitland 434.
Following the Glorious Revolution, Parliament's usual
practice was to appropriate government revenue âto particu-
lar purposes more or less narrowly defned.â Id., at 433.
Additionally, Parliament began limiting the duration of its
revenue grants. For example, the duties on tonnage and
poundage were no longer granted to the King for life, but
only for a term of years. See 2 Wm. & Mary, c. 4, § 1 (1690);
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 429
Opinion of the Court
6 Wm. & Mary, c. 1, § 1 (1694); see also D. Gill, The Treasury,
1660â1714, 46 Eng. Hist. Rev. 600, 610 (1931). Limiting the
duration of these and other revenue grants ensured that the
King could not rule without Parliament. As one historian
described it, Parliament made sure âthe Crown should be
altogether unable to pay its way without an annual meeting
of Parliament. . . . Every year he and his Ministers had to
come, cap in hand, to the House of Commons, and more often
than not the Commons drove a bargain and exacted a quid
pro quo in return for supply.â G. Trevelyan, The English
Revolution 1688â1689, pp. 180â181 (1939).
Even with this newfound fscal supremacy, Parliament did
not micromanage every aspect of the King's fnances. Not
all post-Glorious Revolution grants of supplies were time
limited. A notable exception involved what came to be
known as the civil list. Despite its established power to
limit the duration of revenue grants, Parliament deemed it
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proper to cover the expenses of the King's household and the
civil government by appropriating revenue to that purpose
for life. Maitland 435â436; see also E. Reitan, The Civil List
in Eighteenth-Century British Politics, 9 Hist. J. 318, 319
(1966) (Reitan) (explaining that the âCrown was to meet the
costs of the civil governmentâ out of the civil list, including
âthe fees and salaries of the ministers and many other public
offcers, the salaries of many of the small fry in various gov-
ernment departments, the salaries and pensions of judges,
the salaries and allowances of ambassadors and consuls, and
the maintenance of buildings for Parliament and the public
offcesâ). And, parliamentary grants of supplies ordinarily
gave the Crown broad discretion regarding how much to
spend within an appropriated sum. Statutes granting
money often stated that the Crown could spend âany Sum
not exceedingâ a particular amount. See, e.g., 13 Anne,
c. 18, § 69 (1713); 1 Anne, c. 6, § 130 (1702). These grants
were permissive. As Maitland explained, âMoney is granted
to the queen; it is placed at the disposal of her and her minis-
430 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
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Opinion of the Court
ters. But she and they are not bound by law to spend it, at
least not bound by the Appropriation Act.â Maitland 445.
Other parliamentary appropriations acts, however, required
that money be spent for particular purposes. See, e.g., 2
Wm. & Mary, c. 1, §§ 35â36 (1690); 3 Wm. & Mary, c. 5, §§ 42â
43 (1691); see also M. Rappaport, The Selective Nondelega-
tion Doctrine and the Line Item Veto, 76 Tulane L. Rev. 265,
327, n. 211 (2001) (Rappaport).
The appropriations practice in the Colonies and early state
legislatures was much the same. âWhen called upon to
grant supplies,â the lower houses in the colonial assemblies
âinsisted upon appropriating them in detail.â J. Greene,
The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the
Southern Royal Colonies 1689â1776, p. 88 (1963). Many
early state constitutions vested the legislative body with
power over appropriations. Rappaport 332â333. And, in
exercising that authority, state legislative bodies often opted
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for open-ended, discretionary appropriations. See, e.g., Act
of Mar. 31, 1788, 1787 Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 63, p. 657
(â[T]he amount of all duties collected by virtue of this Act
shall be, and is hereby appropriated to & for the support of
the civil government of this Commonwealthâ); Act of Nov.
17, 1786, 1786 Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 47, p. 117 (appropriat-
ing one-third of revenue âfor the exigencies of Governmentâ);
An act to amend and reduce the several acts for appropriat-
ing the public revenue, into one act, 1784 Va. Acts ch. 46, § 1,
reprinted in 11 W. Hening's Statutes at Large 434 (1823)
(âThe money arising [from certain taxes] shall form a general
fund, ten thousand pounds of which per annum shall be at the
disposal of the executive, to defray the contingent charges of
governmentâ); An act to amend the act for appropriating the
public revenue, 1783 Va. Acts ch. 11, § 4, reprinted in id., at
248 (Half of âall the revenue arising from the tax on free
male tithables . . . shall be applied . . . to the support of civil
governmentâ); An act for the defence of the bay, and to
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 431
Opinion of the Court
impose certain duties on imported articles, 1783 Md. Acts
ch. 26, § 5, reprinted in 1 W. Kilty, The Laws of Maryland
(1799) (â[A]ll the duties imposed by this act on the trade of
this state shall be appropriated for the defence of the bay
and the protection of tradeâ).
By the time of the Constitutional Convention, the principle
of legislative supremacy over fscal matters engendered little
debate and created no disagreement. It was uncontrover-
sial that the powers to raise and disburse public money
would reside in the Legislative Branch. The only disagree-
ment was about whether the right to originate taxation and
appropriations bills should rest in a legislative body with
proportionate representation. Having reached a tentative
agreement on that difference, the Committee of Detail re-
ported a draft constitution giving the House of Representa-
tives the power to originate all revenue and appropriations
laws. This proposed draft contained the prototype of what
Page Proof Pending Publication
later became the Appropriations Clause. It provided that
â[a]ll bills for raising or appropriating money . . . shall origi-
nate in the House of Representatives, and shall not be al-
tered or amended by the Senate. No money shall be drawn
from the public Treasury, but in pursuance of appropriations
that shall originate in the House of Representatives.â 2
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 178 (M. Far-
rand ed. 1911). Ultimately, the Convention agreed to grant
the House an exclusive power to originate revenue laws but
not for appropriations laws. Compare Art. I, § 7, cl. 1, with
§ 9, cl. 7.
In short, the origins of the Appropriations Clause confrm
that appropriations needed to designate particular revenues
for identifed purposes. Beyond that, however, early legis-
lative bodies exercised a wide range of discretion. Some ap-
propriations required expenditure of a particular amount,
while others allowed the recipient of the appropriated money
to spend up to a cap. Some appropriations were time lim-
432 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
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Opinion of the Court
ited, others were not. And, the specifcity with which ap-
propriations designated the objects of the expenditures var-
ied greatly.
3
The practice of the First Congress also illustrates the
source-and-purpose understanding of appropriations. This
practice âprovides contemporaneous and weighty evidence of
the Constitution's meaning.â Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S.
714, 723 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Many early appropriations laws made annual lump-sum
grants for the Government's expenses. Congress' frst an-
nual appropriations law, for instance, divided Government
expenditures into four broad categories and authorized dis-
bursements up to certain amounts for those purposes. For
example, the law appropriated a âsum not exceeding two
hundred and sixteen thousand dollars for defraying the ex-
penses of the civil list,â which covered most nonmilitary ex-
Page Proof Pending Publication
ecutive offcers' salaries and expenses. Act of Sept. 29,
1789, ch. 23, 1 Stat. 95; see 5 Papers of Alexander Hamilton
381â388 (H. Syrett & J. Cooke eds. 1962) (reporting detailed
line-item estimates for civil-list expenditures). And, it ap-
propriated âa sum not exceeding one hundred and thirty-
seven thousand dollars for defraying the expenses of the de-
partment of war.â 1 Stat. 95. The law specifed that the
disbursements would âbe paid out of the monies which arise,
either from the requisitions heretofore made upon the sev-
eral states, or from the duties on impost and tonnage.â
Ibid. Subsequent annual appropriations laws followed a
similar pattern. See Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 4, 1 Stat. 104;
Act of Feb. 11, 1791, ch. 6, 1 Stat. 190; Act of Dec. 23, 1791,
ch. 3, 1 Stat. 226.
The appropriation of âsums not exceedingâ a specifed
amount did not by itself mandate that the Executive spend
that amount; as was the case in England, such appropriations
instead provided the Executive discretion over how much to
spend up to a cap. In 1803, for instance, Congress appro-
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 433
Opinion of the Court
priated âa sum not exceeding ffty thousand dollarsâ to build
up to âffteen gun boats.â Act of Feb. 28, 1803, ch. 11, 2
Stat. 206. President Jefferson subsequently reported, how-
ever, that â[t]he sum of ffty thousand dollars appropriated
by Congress for providing gun boats remains unexpended.
The favorable and peaceable turn of affairs on the Mississippi
rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary.â
13 Annals of Cong. 14 (1803).
Congress took even more fexible approaches to appropria-
tions for several early executive agencies and allowed the
agencies to indefnitely fund themselves directly from reve-
nue collected. Soon after convening, Congress enacted laws
that imposed a detailed schedule of duties on imported goods
and tonnage. See Act of July 4, 1789, ch. 2, 1 Stat. 24â27
(imposing duties on imported goods, wares, and merchan-
dises); Act of July 20, 1789, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 27â28 (imposing
duties on tonnage). It then divided the Nation into customs
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districts and established a vast federal bureaucracy to over-
see the collection of those duties. Act of July 31, 1789,
ch. 5, 1 Stat. 29â49. Rather than fund those customs off-
cials through annual appropriations, Congress opted for a
fee-based model. Customs collectors were compensated
through tonnage- and transaction-based fees specifed by law,
and through a commission on the amount of duties raised
within their districts. For example, customs collectors were
entitled to collect from merchants two-and-a-half dollars âfor
every entrance of any ship or vessel of one hundred tons
burthen or upwardsâ and 20 cents âfor every permit to land
goods.â Id., at 44. And, collectors in the largest ports
were paid âhalf a per centum on the amount of all monies by
them respectively received and paid into the treasury of the
United States.â Id., at 45. Other customs functionaries
were also compensated on a fee basis. For instance, cus-
toms collectors paid weighers 18 cents âout of the revenueâ
collected âfor the measurement of every one hundred bushels
of salt or grain.â Ibid.
434 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
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Opinion of the Court
Congress adopted a similarly open-ended funding scheme
for the Post Offce. Instead of appropriating funds on an
annual basis, Congress authorized the Postmaster General to
âdefray the expenseâ of carrying the mail of the United
States with the revenues generated through postage assess-
ments. Act of Feb. 20, 1792, § 3, 1 Stat. 234. The postal
statute also provided the Postmaster General a $2,000 annual
salary âto be paid . . . out of the revenues of the post-offce.â
§ 8, id., at 235. And, it authorized the Postmaster General
to pay deputy postmasters âsuch commission on the monies
arising from the postage of letters and packets, as he shall
think adequate to their respective services,â subject to an
upper limit. § 23, id., at 238. These fee-based funding
schemes continued year after year without Congress passing
an annual appropriation for these agencies.
These fee- and commission-based funding schemes were
not an American innovation; they emulated the colonial pre-
Page Proof Pending Publication
cursors to the Customs Service and Post Offce. Colonial
customs offcers, for instance, âwere paid a percentage of
total receipts in their area, the proportion varying from col-
ony to colony depending on the estimated potential yield.â
T. Barrow, Trade and Empire: The British Customs Service
in Colonial America 1660â1775, p. 14 (1967). Although the
customs service in the Colonies later transitioned to a salary
system, each customs âoffcial was allowed certain fees for
almost every transaction.â Id., at 78. And, as to the postal
service, the Continental Congress allowed postmaster depu-
ties 20 percent âon the sums they collect and pay into the
General post offce annually,â up to $1,000, and 10 percent
on sums over that amount. 2 Journals of the Continental
Congress, 1774â1789, p. 208 (W. Ford ed. 1905).
Postratifcation practice therefore confrms our interpreta-
tion of the Appropriations Clause. Early appropriations
displayed signifcant variety in their structure. Each, how-
ever, adhered to the minimum requirements of an identifable
source of public funds and purpose.
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 435
Opinion of the Court
B
The Bureau's funding statute contains the requisite fea-
tures of a congressional appropriation. The statute author-
izes the Bureau to draw public funds from a particular
sourceââthe combined earnings of the Federal Reserve Sys-
tem,â in an amount not exceeding an infation-adjusted cap.
12 U. S. C. §§ 5497(a)(1), (2)(A)â(B). And, it specifes the ob-
jects for which the Bureau can use those fundsâto âpay the
expenses of the Bureau in carrying out its duties and respon-
sibilities.â § 5497(c)(1).
Further, the Bureau's funding mechanism fts comfortably
with the First Congress' appropriations practice. In design,
the Bureau's authorization to draw an amount that the Direc-
tor deems reasonably necessary to carry out the agency's
responsibilities, subject to a cap, is similar to the First Con-
gress' lump-sum appropriations. And, the commission- and
fee-based appropriations that supplied the Customs Service
Page Proof Pending Publication
and Post Offce provided standing authorizations to expend
public money in the same way that the Bureau's funding
mechanism does.
For these reasons, we conclude that the statute that au-
thorizes the Bureau to draw funds from the combined earn-
ings of the Federal Reserve System is an âAppropriatio[n]
made by Law.â We therefore hold that the requirements of
the Appropriations Clause are satisfed.
III
The associations make three principal arguments for why
the Bureau's funding mechanism violates the Appropriations
Clause, each of which attempts to build additional require-
ments into the meaning of an âAppropriatio[n] made by
Law.â None is persuasive.
A
At the outset, the associations argue that the Bureau's
funding is not âdrawn . . . in Consequence of Appropriations
436 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Opinion of the Court
made by Lawâ because the agency, rather than Congress,
decides the amount of annual funding that it draws from the
Federal Reserve System. This argument proceeds from a
mistaken premise. Congress determined the amount of the
Bureau's annual funding by imposing a statutory cap. The
Bureau's funding statute provides that âthe amount that
shall be transferred to the Bureau in each fscal year shall
not exceedâ 12 percent âof the total operating expenses of
the Federal Reserve Systemâ as reported in 2009 and ad-
justed for infation. § 5497(a)(2). The only sense in which
the Bureau decides its own funding, then, is by exercising its
discretion to draw less than the statutory cap. But, as we
have explained, âsums not exceedingâ appropriations, which
provided the Executive with the same discretion, were com-
monplace immediately after the founding. Supra, at 432â
433. Thus, we cannot conclude that Congress violated the
Appropriations Clause by permitting the Bureau to decide
how much funding to draw up to a cap.
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B
Next, the associations suggest that the Bureau's funding
statute is not a valid appropriation because it is not time
limited. On their reading, the Appropriations Clause re-
quires both Chambers of Congress to periodically agree on
an agency's funding, which ensures that each Chamber re-
serves the power to unilaterally block those funding meas-
ures through inaction. The Bureau's funding mechanism,
the associations insist, inverts this baseline by allowing it to
draw fundsâforeverâunless both Chambers of Congress
step in and affrmatively prevent the agency from doing so.
But, the Constitution's text suggests that, at least in some
circumstances, Congress can make standing appropriations.
The Constitution expressly provides that âno Appropriation
of Moneyâ to support an army âshall be for a longer Term
than two Years.â Art. I, § 8, cl. 12. Hamilton explained
that this restriction ensures that, for the army, Congress
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 437
Opinion of the Court
cannot âvest in the Executive department . . . permanent
fundsâ and must instead âonce at least in every two years
. . . deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force
on foot,â âcome to a new resolution on the point,â and âde-
clare their sense of the matter, by a formal vote in the face
of their constituents.â The Federalist No. 26, p. 143 (E.
Scott ed. 1898). The Framers were thus aware of the dy-
namic that the associations highlight, but they did not explic-
itly limit the duration of appropriations for other purposes.
The First Congress' practice confrms this understanding.
Recall that the appropriations that supplied funding to the
Customs Service and the Post Offce were not time limited.
Supra, at 433â434. The associations resist the analogy to
the Post Offce and other fee-based agencies, arguing that
such agencies do not enjoy the same level of fscal independ-
ence as the Bureau. Fee-based agencies, the associations
reason, âcould not demand funds from the federal fsc, but
rather needed to persuade the people they served to pay
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them, and the public could refuse to purchase to infuence
their conduct.â Brief for Respondents 35. The associa-
tions, however, make no attempt to explain why the possibil-
ity that the public's choices could restrain fee-based agencies'
revenue is relevant to the question whether a law complies
with the constitutional imperative that there be an
appropriation.
C
Finally, the associations contend that the Bureau's funding
mechanism provides a blueprint for destroying the separa-
tion of powers, and that it invites tyranny by allowing the
Executive to operate free of any meaningful fscal check. If
the Bureau's funding mechanism is consistent with the Ap-
propriations Clause, the associations reason, then Congress
could do the same for anyâor everyâcivilian executive
agency. And that, they conclude, would be the very unifca-
tion of the sword and purse that the Appropriations Clause
forbids.
438 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
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Opinion of the Court
The associations err by reducing the power of the purse to
only the principle expressed in the Appropriations Clause.
To be sure, the Appropriations Clause presupposes Con-
gress' powers over the purse. But, its phrasing and location
in the Constitution make clear that it is not itself the source
of those powers. The Appropriations Clause is phrased as
a limitation: âNo Money shall be drawn from the Treasury,
but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.â Art.
I, § 9. And, it is placed within a section of other such limita-
tions. Compare ibid. (âNo Bill of Attainder or ex post facto
Law shall be passedâ) and ibid. (âNo Tax or Duty shall be
laid on Articles exported from any Stateâ), with § 8 (âThe
Congress shall have Power To . . . â). The associations offer
no defensible argument that the Appropriations Clause re-
quires more than a law that authorizes the disbursement of
specifed funds for identifed purposes. Without such a the-
ory, the associations' Appropriations Clause challenge must
fail. See Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 277â278 (2023).
Page Proof Pending Publication
IV
The dissent's theory fares no better. The dissent accepts
that the question in this case is ultimately about the meaning
of âAppropriations.â Post, at 452. It faults us for consult-
ing dictionaries to ascertain the original public meaning of
that word, insisting instead that âAppropriationsâ is a âterm
of art whose meaning has been feshed out by centuries of
history.â Ibid. But, as we have explained at length, both
preratifcation and postratifcation appropriations practice
support our source-and-purpose understanding. Supra, at
427â434. What is more, the dissent never offers a compet-
ing understanding of what the word âAppropriationsâ means.
After winding its way through English, Colonial, and early
American history about the struggle for popular control of
the purse, the dissent declares that âthe Appropriations
Clause demands legislative control over the source and dis-
position of the money used to fnance Government operations
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 439
Opinion of the Court
and projects.â Post, at 463. The dissent never connects its
summary of history back to the word âAppropriations.â
And, even setting that problem aside, it is unclear why the
dissent's theory leads to a different outcome: Congress con-
trols the âsource and disposition of the money used to fnance
Government operations and projectsâ by enacting a law that
identifes the source of public funds and authorizes the ex-
penditure of those funds for designated purposes.
The dissent's rendition of history largely ignores the his-
torical evidence that bears most directly on the meaning of
âAppropriationsâ at the foundingâpreratifcation appropria-
tions laws. For example, the dissent spends pages recount-
ing how Parliament secured fscal supremacy and wielded
that power to superintend the King. See post, at 453â458.
Although that history is a helpful starting point, see supra,
at 427â428, it at most explains why appropriations must be
âmade by Lawâânot what it means for the legislature to
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make an âAppropriation.â The dissent does not meaning-
fully grapple with the many parliamentary appropriations
laws that preserved a broad range of fscal discretion for the
King. See supra, at 428â430. It makes no attempt to ex-
plain âsums not exceedingâ appropriations. See ibid. And,
the dissent brushes aside the civil list, asserting that it
â `presented a constitutional problem in the confict between
the principle of the independence of the Crown and the prin-
ciple of parliamentary control of fnance.' â Post, at 458
(quoting Reitan 320). The problem was that the King
claimed absolute power to use the sums granted in the civil
list as he pleased and regularly spent in excess of the allotted
amount. See id., at 320, 324â329. But, the dissent never
explains why the reforms that Parliament adopted in re-
sponse to these abuses bear on whether the law establishing
the civil list was an âappropriation.â
The dissent's treatment of early American history does not
advance its point either. It highlights the undisputed point
that colonial and state legislative bodies exercised the
440 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
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Opinion of the Court
power of the purse, post, at 459â460, while sidestepping the
discretionary and open-ended appropriations they enacted,
supra, at 430â431. The dissent quibbles with the open-
ended appropriations laws that we rely on, speculating that
state constitutions somehow constrained the breadth of those
laws. Post, at 463, n. 13. But, the dissent never explains
how these constitutional provisions informed what it meant
for state legislative bodies to make an âappropriationâ and,
in any event, its critique misses the point: It was common-
place for preratifcation appropriations laws to be open-
ended in a way that is not consistent with the specifcity that
the dissent's theory appears to require.
When the dissent turns to postratifcation history, it en-
gages with several appropriations laws enacted by the First
Congress. The dissent acknowledges, as it must, that the
fee- and commission-based funding schemes for the Customs
Service and Post Offce show that Congress exercised broad
Page Proof Pending Publication
discretion over how to appropriate money. Post, at 461â462.
To square these funding schemes with its understanding of
the Appropriations Clause, the dissent points out that Con-
gress required âfees in excess of what was needed to defray
the cost of providing services be turned over to the Treas-
ury.â Post, at 462. This requirement, the dissent reasons,
âensured that Congress maintained control over the pur-
poses for which [the appropriated] money was spent.â Ibid.
But, if what matters is that Congress controls how funds are
spent, then we are all in agreementâappropriations must
designate the purposes for which money can be spent.
Even under the dissent's âlegislative controlâ theory, its
attempt to distinguish the Customs Service and the Post Of-
fce from the Bureau is not convincing. The dissent points
out that Congress had control over the Customs Service, for
instance, because Customs had a âcarefully delineated mis-
sionâ and âearly tariff Acts spelled out in excruciating detail
the various feesâ customs offcers could collect, as well as the
salaries the offcers could be paid from those receipts. Post,
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 441
Kagan, J., concurring
at 466. According to the dissent, the Bureau is different be-
cause â[i]ts powers are broad and vast,â â[i]t does not collect
fees,â and âit is permitted to keep and invest surplus funds.â
Ibid. But, it is unclear why these differences matter under
the dissent's theory. After all, to make a valid appropria-
tion, Congress must designate the objects for which the ap-
propriated funds may be usedâas it did here. See 12
U. S. C. § 5497(c)(1). Although there may be other constitu-
tional checks on Congress' authority to create and fund an
administrative agency, specifying the source and purpose is
all the control the Appropriations Clause requires.
V
The statute that authorizes the Bureau to draw money
from the combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System
to carry out its duties satisfes the Appropriations Clause.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Ap-
Page Proof Pending Publication
peals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Sotomayor, Jus-
tice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett join, concurring.
I join in full the Court's opinion holding that the funding
mechanism for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
complies with the Appropriations Clause. As the Court de-
tails, that conclusion emerges from the Clause's âtext, the his-
tory against which that text was enacted, and congressional
practice immediately following ratifcation.â Ante, at 426.
At its inception, the Clause required only that Congress
âidentify a source of public funds and authorize the expendi-
ture of those funds for designated purposes.â Ibid. The
Clause otherwise granted Congress âa wide range of discre-
tion.â Ante, at 431. The result was âsignifcant varietyâ in
appropriationsâmost notably, as to their specifcity, dura-
tion, and funding source. Ante, at 434; see ante, at 432â434.
442 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
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Kagan, J., concurring
The CFPB's funding scheme, if transplanted back to the late-
18th century, would have ft right in.
I write separately to note that the same would have been
true at any other time in our Nation's history. â `Long set-
tled and established practice' may have `great weight' â in
interpreting constitutional provisions about the operation of
government. Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U. S. 578, 592â
593 (2020) (quoting The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655, 689
(1929)); see also The Federalist No. 37, p. 229 (C. Rossiter ed.
1961). And here just such a tradition supports everything
the Court says about the Appropriations Clause's meaning.
The founding-era practice that the Court relates became the
19th-century practice, which became the 20th-century prac-
tice, which became today's. For over 200 years now, Con-
gress has exercised broad discretion in crafting appropria-
tions. Sometimes it has authorized the expenditure of a
sum certain for an itemized purpose on an annual basis.
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And sometimes it has departed from that model in one or
more ways. All the fexibility and diversity evident in the
founding period has thus continued unabated, making it ever
more obvious that the CFPB's funding accords with the
Constitution.
For one thing, Congress has never thought it necessary to
designate specifc amounts for specifc items. Over the
years, many appropriations have instead given the Execu-
tive leeway to decide how to allocate funds, up to a ceiling,
among a set of activities. As the Court shows, the First
Congress made appropriations of âsums not exceeding â
stated amounts for âbroad categoriesâ of purposes; the Exec-
utive then decided the level of funding it would use for all
things within a category. Ante, at 432. In instituting those
âlump-sum grants,â the First Congress created a template
for later ones to follow. Ibid. Examples of such grants
âabound in our history.â Clinton v. City of New York, 524
U. S. 417, 467 (1998) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dis-
senting in part). During the Civil War, Congress author-
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 443
Kagan, J., concurring
ized the allocation of $76.5 million for various expenses âas
the exigencies of the [Army] may require.â Act of Feb. 25,
1862, ch. 32, 12 Stat. 344â345. In the Depression, Congress
made $950 million available âfor such projects and/or pur-
posesâ as the President âin his discretion may prescribe.â
Act of Feb. 15, 1934, ch. 13, 48 Stat. 351. More recent exam-
ples include an appropriation not to exceed $135 million for
uses that the Secretaries of Defense and Energy determine
are ânecessary for Atomic Energy Defense Activities.â Act
of Nov. 29, 1989, § 1605(a), 103 Stat. 1598. The constitution-
ality of such measures, Justice Scalia observed, âhas never
seriously been questionedââin part because of their preva-
lence. Clinton, 524 U. S., at 467. Our government practice
has been âreplete with instances of general appropriationsâ
to be âexpended as directed by designated government agen-
cies.â Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U. S. 308,
322 (1937). The CFPB's authority to take and allocate mon-
eys up to a statutory cap is just one more instance to add to
Page Proof Pending Publication
the list.
Similarly, Congress has never thought appropriations
must be annual, or even time-limited. (Appropriations that
are time-limited themselves show variety: Most are annual,
but some last for longer periodsâsay, two or fve years.*)
âStanding â appropriationsâthose making funds âalways
available for specifed purposesâ without ârequir[ing] re-
peated [legislative] actionââhave a long history. GAO, Prin-
ciples of Federal Appropriations Law, p. 2â10 (rev. 4th ed.
2016). As the Court notes, the First Congress, by setting up
fee-based schemes, provided the Customs Service and Post
Offce with indefnite funding. See ante, at 433â434, 437.
And in doing so, that Congress again inspired its succes-
sors. Standing appropriations proliferated during the 19th
*See, e. g., Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Pro-
grams Appropriations Act, 2001, § 101(a), 114 Stat. 1900 et seq. (2-year
appropriations); Military Construction Appropriations Act of 1986, 99
Stat. 1024 (5-year appropriations).
444 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Kagan, J., concurring
century; by 1880, 138 statutes making them were on the
books. See S. Rep. No. 334, 46th Cong., 2d Sess., 4â7 (1880)
(listing statutes). And the growth has not stopped: By Fis-
cal Year 2022, spending that does not require periodic appro-
priations (whether annual or longer) accounted for nearly
two-thirds of the federal budget. See Congressional Budget
Offce, The Accuracy of CBO's Budget Projections for Fiscal
Year 2022, p. 3 (Jan. 2023). Frequently, too, standing ap-
propriations do not designate specifc sums of money, thus
combining one type of fexibility with another. They in-
stead may provide the sums ânecessary for purposes of â a
programâsuch as to provide unemployment assistance or
give scholarships to veterans' dependents. 15 U. S. C.
§ 9023(d)(3); see 20 U. S. C. § 1070h(f). So again, Congress's
non-time-limited grant to the CFPB for amounts (up to a
cap) âreasonably necessary to carry outâ its duties falls
within an established tradition. 12 U. S. C. § 5497(a).
Page Proof Pending Publication
And âfexible approaches to appropriationsâ have been
particularly common in the sphere of fnancial regulation.
Ante, at 433. There, Congress's adoption of assessment-
based funding mechanisms (similar to those the First Con-
gress used for the Customs Service and Post Offce, see
supra, at 443) has meant that regulators do not have to seek
yearly legislative funding. And they generally may devote
the funds they collect to any of a range of activities. For
example, the Offce of the Comptroller of the Currency has
authority to levy assessments on banks as ânecessary or ap-
propriate to carry out [its] responsibilities.â 12 U. S. C. § 16;
see also Act of Feb. 19, 1875, ch. 89, 18 Stat. 329. Similarly,
the Federal Reserve Board assesses Federal Reserve Banks
for whatever amount is âsuffcient to pay its estimated ex-
penses.â 12 U. S. C. § 243; see also Federal Reserve Act, 38
Stat. 261 (1913). Indeed, not a single federal bank regulator
is currently, or has been for a long while, funded by standard
congressional appropriations. The CFPB received from
those regulators most of the powers it wields today. So it
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 445
Jackson, J., concurring
is not surprising that the CFPB also inherited a bank-funded
scheme enabling it to allocate moneys, at its own discretion,
to carry out its responsibilities.
I would therefore add one more point to the Court's opin-
ion. As the Court describes, the Appropriations Clause's text
and founding-era history support the constitutionality of the
CFPB's funding. See ante, at 426. And so too does a con-
tinuing tradition. Throughout our history, Congress has
created a variety of mechanisms to pay for government oper-
ations. Some schemes specifed amounts to go to designated
items; others left greater discretion to the Executive. Some
were limited in duration; others were permanent. Some re-
lied on general Treasury moneys; others designated alterna-
tive sources of funds. Whether or not the CFPB's mecha-
nism has an exact replica, its essentials are nothing new.
And it was devised more than two centuries into an unbro-
ken congressional practice, beginning at the beginning, of
innovation and adaptation in appropriating funds. The way
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our Government has actually worked, over our entire experi-
ence, thus provides another reason to uphold Congress's deci-
sion about how to fund the CFPB.
Justice Jackson, concurring.
Today, the Court correctly concludes that, based on the
plain meaning of the text of the Appropriations Clause, âan
appropriation is simply a law that authorizes expenditures
from a specifed source of public money for designated pur-
poses.â Ante, at 424. The statute that Congress passed to
fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau easily meets
the Appropriations Clause's minimal requirements. See
ante, at 435. It authorizes the Bureau to withdraw money
from âthe combined earnings of the Federal Reserve Sys-
tem,â 12 U. S. C. § 5497(a)(1), in order âto pay the expenses
of the Bureau in carrying out its duties and responsibilities,â
§ 5497(c)(1). In my view, nothing more is needed to decide
this case.
446 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD
Jackson, J., concurring
Indeed, there are good reasons to go no further. When
the Constitution's text does not provide a limit to a coordi-
nate branch's power, we should not lightly assume that Arti-
cle III implicitly directs the Judiciary to fnd one. The Con-
stitution was âintended to endure for ages to come, and,
consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human
affairs.â McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 415 (1819)
(emphasis deleted). An essential aspect of the Constitu-
tion's endurance is that it empowers the political branches to
address new challenges by enacting new laws and policiesâ
without undue interference by courts. To that end, we have
made clear in cases too numerous to count that nothing in the
Constitution gives federal courts â `some amorphous general
supervision of the operations of government.' â Raines v.
Byrd, 521 U. S. 811, 829 (1997) (quoting United States v.
Richardson, 418 U. S. 166, 192 (1974) (Powell, J., concur-
ring)). Put another way, the principle of separation of pow-
Page Proof Pending Publication
ers manifested in the Constitution's text applies with just as
much force to the Judiciary as it does to Congress and the
Executive. See Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75,
90â91 (1947).
This case illustrates why. As the Court explains, in re-
sponse to the devastation wrought by the 2008 fnancial cri-
sis, Congress passed and the President signed the Dodd-
Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
See ante, at 421. In that statute, Congress chose to fund the
Bureau outside of the annual appropriations process. See
ante, at 422. Drawing on its extensive experience in fnancial
regulation, Congress designed the funding scheme to protect
the Bureau from the risk that powerful regulated entities
might capture the annual appropriations process. See, e.g.,
S. Rep. No. 111â176, pp. 162â164 (2010); A. Levitin, The Poli-
tics of Financial Regulation and the Regulation of Financial
Politics, 127 Harv. L. Rev. 1991, 2056â2058 (2014); R. Barkow,
Insulating Agencies, 89 Texas L. Rev. 15, 42â45, 67, 77 (2010);
see also ante, at 444 (Kagan, J., concurring) (describing long
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 447
Alito, J., dissenting
history of congressional fexibility in designing funding
schemes for fnancial regulators).
Respondents, two associations of payday lenders, repre-
sent exactly the type of entity the Bureau's progenitors
sought to regulate and whose infuence Congress may have
feared. See O. Bar-Gill & E. Warren, Making Credit Safer,
157 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1, 44â45, 55â59, 68â70 (2008). In urging
us to fnd the Bureau's funding scheme unconstitutional,
then, respondents would not only have us fnd unstated limits
in the Constitution's text, they would have us undercut the
considered judgments of a coordinate branch about how to
respond to a pressing national concern.
Of course, to say that Congress had reasons for designing
the Bureau's funding scheme in the manner it did is not to
endorse those policy choices. âWith the wisdom of the pol-
icy adopted, with the adequacy or practicability of the law
enacted to forward it, the courts are both incompetent and
unauthorized to deal.â Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502,
Page Proof Pending Publication
537 (1934). Instead, the Constitution places primary re-
sponsibility for checking the political branches with the Peo-
ple. See King v. Burwell, 576 U. S. 473, 498 (2015) (âIn a
democracy, the power to make the law rests with those cho-
sen by the peopleâ). It is to them that the Court rightly
returns any remaining policy questions posed by today's
case.
Justice Alito, with whom Justice Gorsuch joins,
dissenting.
Since the earliest days of our Republic, Congress's âpower
over the purseâ has been its âmost complete and effectual
weaponâ to ensure that the other branches do not exceed
or abuse their authority. The Federalist No. 58, p. 359
(C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). The Appropriations
Clause protects this power by providing that â[n]o Money
shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of
Appropriations made by Law.â Art. I, § 9, cl. 7. This pro-
448 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
vision has a rich history extending back centuries before the
founding of our country. Its aim is to ensure that the peo-
ple's elected representatives monitor and control the expend-
iture of public funds and the projects they fnance, and it
imposes on Congress an important duty that it cannot sign
away. âAny other courseâ would give the Executive âa most
dangerous discretion.â Reeside v. Walker, 11 How. 272,
291 (1851).
Unfortunately, today's decision turns the Appropriations
Clause into a minor vestige. The Court upholds a novel
statutory scheme under which the powerful Consumer Fi-
nancial Protection Bureau (CFPB) may bankroll its own
agenda without any congressional control or oversight. Ac-
cording to the Court, all that the Appropriations Clause de-
mands is that Congress âidentify a source of public funds
and authorize the expenditure of those funds for designated
purposes.â Ante, at 426. Under this interpretation, the
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Clause imposes no temporal limit that would prevent Con-
gress from authorizing the Executive to spend public funds
in perpetuity. Contra, Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws,
bk. XI, ch. VI, p. 160 (O. Piest ed., T. Nugent transl. 1949)
(warning that a legislature will lose its power of the purse if
it passes an appropriation that lasts âforeverâ). Nor does
the Court's interpretation require Congress to set an upper
limit on the amount of money that the Executive may take.
Today's decision does not even demand that an agency's
funds come from the Treasury. As the Solicitor General ad-
mitted at argument, under this interpretation, the Appropri-
ations Clause would permit an agency to be funded entirely
by private sources. Tr. of Oral Arg. 34â35. In short, there
is apparently nothing wrong with a law that empowers the
Executive to draw as much money as it wants from any iden-
tifed source for any permissible purpose until the end of
time.
That is not what the Appropriations Clause was under-
stood to mean when it was adopted. In England, Parlia-
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 449
Alito, J., dissenting
ment had won the power over the purse only after centuries
of struggle with the Crown. Steeped in English constitu-
tional history, the Framers placed the Appropriations Clause
in the Constitution to protect this hard-won legislative
power.
I
In the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Con-
sumer Protection Act, Congress created the CFPB, an inde-
pendent regulatory agency with âvast rulemaking, enforce-
ment, and adjudicatory authority over a signifcant portion of
the U. S. economy.â Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. 197, 203 (2020); see id., at 222,
n. 8. And in designing the CFPB, âCongress deviated from
the structure of nearly every other independent administra-
tive agency in our history.â Id., at 203. At every turn, the
statute attempted to insulate the CFPB from control by any
offcial answerable to the people. First, âCongress provided
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that the CFPB would be led by a single Director, who serves
for a longer term than the President,â and Congress at-
tempted to protect the Director from removal by the Presi-
dent âexcept for ineffciency, neglect, or malfeasance.â Ibid.
In Seila Law, we struck down this restriction because it
placed âpotentâ power in the hands of an offcial who was
âneither elected by the people nor meaningfully controlled
. . . by someone who is.â Id., at 206, 224â225.
Elected in the atmosphere that followed the fnancial crisis
of 2008, the Congress that created the CFPB also sought to
free the CFPB from supervision by subsequent Congresses
that might wish to superintend the Bureau's exercise of its
vast powers. To achieve that end, the CFPB was given an
unprecedented way of obtaining funds that was expressly
designed to make it totally âindependent of the Congres-
sional appropriations process.â S. Rep. No. 111â176, p. 163
(2010).
Under that scheme, the CFPB is not funded by appropria-
tions enacted by Congress. Instead, each year, the CFPB
450 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
Director tells the Federal Reserve Board of Governors how
much money it thinks is âreasonably necessaryâ to carry out
the CFPB's operations. 12 U. S. C. § 5497(a)(1). So long as
this amount does not exceed 12% of the Federal Reserve
System's total operating expenses, the Board of Governors
must comply with that demand and hand over the specifed
sum âfrom the combined earnings of the Federal Reserve
System.â §§ 5497(a)(1), (2)(A). These earnings come from
the Federal Reserve Banks, which are federally chartered
corporations that are ânot departments of the government.â
Emergency Fleet Corp. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 275
U. S. 415, 426 (1928); see § 341.1 The Federal Reserve
Banks' earnings represent interest on and gains derived
from the purchase and sale of securities, as well as fees they
receive for services provided to depository institutions,
âsuch as check clearing, funds transfers, and automated
clearinghouse operations.â United States Federal Reserve
System, The Fed Explained: What the Central Bank Does 4
Page Proof Pending Publication
(11th ed. 2021); see also Brief for Petitioners 23. At present,
the CFPB's maximum annual draw is nearly $750 million.2
In addition, the CFPB, unlike most agencies, does not have
to return any unspent funds to the Treasury. 12 U. S. C.
§ 5497(b). Instead, the CFPB may invest or roll over any
unspent money into a separate fund, which it may use in the
future âto pay the expenses of the [CFPB] in carrying out
its duties and responsibilities.â §§ 5497(b)â(c).3 As of Sep-
1
Each Federal Reserve Bank has a Board of nine Directorsâsix are
elected by private member banks, and three are appointed by the Federal
Reserve System's Board of Governors. 12 U. S. C. §§ 302, 304.
2
In the most recent fscal year, the Bureau requested $641.5 million of
its then-applicable $734 million limit. Financial Report of the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau: Fiscal Year 2022, pp. 44â45 (Nov. 15, 2022)
(2022 Report) (online source archived at https://www.supremecourt.gov).
3
The CFPB invests these funds in 3-month Treasury bills, from which
it receives an annualized return of 5%. See Board of Governors of the
Federal Reserve System, 3-Month Treasury Bill Secondary Market Rate,
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 451
Alito, J., dissenting
tember 30, 2022, the CFPB had built up an endowment worth
nearly $340 million. See 2022 Report, at 86.
In devising this novel scheme, Congress appears to have
anticipated that it might be challenged under the Appropria-
tions Clause, and Congress therefore attempted to shield
its new creation by providing that â[f]unds obtained by or
transferred to the [CFPB] shall not be construed to be
Government funds or appropriated monies.â 4 § 5497(c)(2).
And to impede congressional oversight of the CFPB's use of
this money, the Act added that the Bureau's funds are not
âsubject to review by the Committees on Appropriations.â
§ 5497(a)(2)(C).
The Framers would be shocked, even horrifed, by this
scheme. Beginning with the First Congress, agencies5 were
generally funded by annual appropriations from the Treas-
ury. K. Stith, Congress' Power of the Purse, 97 Yale L. J.
1343, 1354, n. 53 (1988) (Stith). While there have been de-
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partures from this dominant model, nothing like the CFPB's
funding scheme has previously been seen. In the decision
below, the Fifth Circuit held that the CFPB's unparalleled
fnancial independence violates the Appropriations Clause
and âthe constitutional separation of powers.â 51 F. 4th 616,
642 (2022). Because I agree that the CFPB's funding struc-
ture is unconstitutional, I would affrm the Fifth Circuit's
judgment.
Discount Basis, Economic Research: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
(Mar. 13, 2024), https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DTB3.
4
Congress obviously cannot evade the Appropriations Clause simply by
placing a different label on an authorization to obtain and spend money
that falls within the meaning of an âAppropriatio[n]â under that provision.
And here, the Government argues that the statutory provision cited in the
text was not meant to have that effect, but was adopted for other pur-
poses. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 20.
5
For want of a better term, I use the term âagencyâ to refer to any
component of the Executive Branch.
452 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
II
A
The Appropriations Clause is found in Article I, § 9, clause
7, of the Constitution, which provides:
âNo Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a reg-
ular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Ex-
penditures of all public Money shall be published from
time to time.â
The frst part of this provision is customarily called the Ap-
propriations Clause, and the second is referred to as the
Statement and Account Clause.
The Appropriations Clause contains two key termsâ
âMoney . . . drawn from the Treasuryâ and âAppropria-
tionsââboth of which require a little explanation. As the
Government acknowledges, âMoney . . . drawn from the
Treasuryâ is synonymous with the term âpublic Money,â 6
Page Proof Pending Publication
which appears in the Statement and Account Clause. And
in this case, it is undisputed that the funds requisitioned by
the CFPB constitute âpublic Money.â 7 Thus, the only re-
maining textual question is whether the CFPB gets its fund-
ing from âAppropriationsâ in the sense in which the Consti-
tution uses that term.
The Court answers that question by consulting a few old
dictionaries, which it says establish that â[i]n ordinary usage,
. . . an appropriation of public money would be a law author-
izing the expenditure of particular funds for specifed ends.â
Ante, at 427. It accordingly concludes that the Appropria-
tions Clause requires no more than a law, a fund, and a pur-
pose. Ante, at 426â427.
This analysis overlooks the fact that the term âAppropria-
tions,â as used in the Constitution, is a term of art whose
meaning has been feshed out by centuries of history. To
6
See, e. g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 34; Stith 1357.
7
See, e. g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 19, 34.
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 453
Alito, J., dissenting
be sure, in interpreting the Constitution, we start with the
presumption that â `its words and phrases' â carry their
â `normal and ordinary' â meaning. District of Columbia v.
Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 576 (2008) (quoting United States v.
Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931)). But our analysis cannot
end there. Some provisions use terms with specialized and
well-established meanings that we cannot use dictionaries to
brush aside. â `[I]f a word is obviously transplanted from
another legal source, whether the common law or other legis-
lation, it brings the old soil with it.' â Sekhar v. United
States, 570 U. S. 729, 733 (2013); see also A. Scalia & B. Gar-
ner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 73â77
(2012). Applied here, this rule means that the term âAppro-
priatio[n]â should be interpreted in light of âlegal tradition
and . . . centuries of practice.â Morissette v. United States,
342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952). I therefore turn to that history.
B
Page Proof Pending
1 Publication
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not in-
vent the appropriations requirement. Rather, that impor-
tant safeguard arose from centuries of âBritish experience.â
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. All Am. Check
Cashing, Inc., 33 F. 4th 218, 224 (CA5 2022) (en banc) (Jones,
J., concurring). The Framers were aware of the require-
ment's deep roots and the critical role it had played in âthe
history of the British Constitution.â The Federalist No. 58,
at 359. By steadily asserting the power to condition appro-
priations, the House of Commons, originally âan infant and
humble representation of the people[,] gradually enlarg[ed]
the sphere of its activity and importance, and fnally re-
duc[ed], as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown
prerogatives of the other branches of the government.â
Ibid.
A short summary of this process illustrates the important
role of the appropriations requirement. During the Middle
454 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
Ages, kings relied almost entirely on what was called âordi-
naryâ revenue. F. Maitland, The Constitutional History of
England 433 (1908) (reprint 1993) (Maitland). This included
income from lands owned by the Crown, customs duties, and
feudal dues. See 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the
Laws of England 281â306 (2d ed. 1766). Consequently,
there was little meaningful difference âbetween the national
revenue and the king's private pocket-money.â Maitland
433.
The Crown's fnancial independence gave it the ability to
govern with little parliamentary interference. As Maitland
puts it, âthroughout the Middle Ages the king's revenue had
been in a very true sense the king's revenue, and parliament
had but seldom attempted to give him orders as to what he
should do with it.â Id., at 309. âUnder the Tudors, parlia-
ment hardly dared to meddle with such matters.â Ibid.
In the 17th century, however, this pattern began to change.
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Id., at 309â310. By that time, âthe king's ordinary revenues
were no longer even remotely suffcient to cover the normal
costs of royal governance,â and the heavy expenditures of
James I and Charles I exacerbated the problem. J. Chafetz,
Congress's Constitution 47 (2017) (Chafetz). Rather than
seeking appropriations from Parliament, the early Stuart
kings engaged in controversial efforts to obtain additional
ordinary income through the use of various royal âpreroga-
tive[s].â G. Smith, A Constitutional and Legal History of
England 315 (1955) (Smith). Among other things, they uni-
laterally imposed duties on imports, stepped up the collec-
tion of feudal dues, sold monopolies, and forced individuals
to loan money on pain of imprisonment. See id., at 315, 318.
These measures aroused opposition and, in any event, did
not yield suffcient funds. As a result, James I and Charles
I periodically found it necessary to ask Parliament to impose
new taxes in order to obtain the funds they wanted. When
they did so, the Commons began to fex the power of the
purse and to demand a measure of royal accountability. Dis-
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 455
Alito, J., dissenting
putes between the Commons and the Stuart kings about the
power of the purse played a pivotal role in the transition
from royal to parliamentary fnancial supremacy.
A few incidents illustrate this dynamic. In 1621, the
power of the purse played a central role in disputes between
the Crown and Parliament over religious, geopolitical, and
judicial authority. For some months, Parliament ignored re-
quests from James I for more tax revenue. T. Taswell-
Langmead, English Constitutional History From the Teu-
tonic Conquest to the Present Time 532 (3d ed. 1886)
(Taswell-Langmead). Though Parliament fnally expressed
âwilling[ness] to grant a moderate subsidy,â it insisted âfrstâ
on redress for âgrievances.â Id., at 533; see also Smith 315â
316. Parliament's petition infuriated James I, who ulti-
mately dissolved Parliament and sent several of its leadersâ
including Sir Matthew Haleâto the Tower of London.
Taswell-Langmead 534, 536.
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Under Charles I, the situation worsened. At the begin-
ning of his reign, the Commons refused to grant him the
life-time power to impose tonnage and poundage duties, i. e.,
duties on imports and exports, as had been the custom, but
instead granted the power for only one year. Id., at 539.
The members of Commons âhad no intention of refusing a
further supply, but were resolved to avail themselves of their
Constitutional right to make it dependent upon redress of
grievances.â Ibid. Indignant about this temerity, the King
hastily dissolved Parliament before the Lords passed the bill.
Id., at 540; Smith 318. But as a consequence, the King once
again then found himself without suffcient funds. So he
took matters into his own hands by resorting to the mon-
archy's âold illegal methods of raising money.â Taswell-
Langmead 543.
This reignited a power struggle between the two
branches. As a result, when Charles I again turned to Par-
liament in 1628, the Commons refused to grant funds until
he agreed to the Petition of Right, which demanded that he
456 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
cease efforts to obtain more âordinary incomeâ by objection-
able means, such as compulsory loans and the payment of
âany tax, tallage,8 aid, or other like charge not set by com-
mon consent, in parliament.â 3 Car. I., c. 1. (1628). The
King, of course, did not like this. So when the Commons
continued to challenge royal prerogatives, Charles I pro-
rogued Parliament. And during the long period that ensued
in which Parliament did not meet (1629â1640), the King
sought new sources of âordinary income,â including the impo-
sition of âShip-money,â that is, fees imposed on both mari-
time and inland counties to pay for the construction of ships.
Taswell-Langmead 566â569. These practices âfurther en-
raged an already alienated Parliament, reinforcing a vicious
cycle that led to the Civil War and, ultimately, to Charles's
beheading.â Chafetz 47.
This constitutional crisis restored the English Govern-
ment's fnancial separation of powers for a season. During
the Commonwealth, the Commons exercised âcomplete au-
Page Proof Pending Publication
thority . . . over the whole receipts and expenditure of the
national treasury.â Taswell-Langmead 626. But shortly
after the Restoration, the war for the supremacy of the purse
reignited. Starting in 1665, âParliament was largely unwill-
ing to grant [the King] additional money without specifying
in some measure how it was to be used.â Chafetz 50.
âThis precedent was followed in some, but not all . . . cases
under Charles II.â Maitland 310. Charles II, âfed up with
parliamentary interference, ruled without Parliament, and
therefore without any parliamentary taxation, for the rest of
his reign.â Chafetz 50.
After the Revolution of 1688, Parliament took strong
measures to curb the Crown's fnancial independence. The
1689 Bill of Rights declared â[t]hat levying Money for or to
the Use of the Crowne by pretence of Prerogative, without
8
A tallage is â[a]n arbitrary tax levied by the monarch on towns and
lands belonging to the crown.â Black's Law Dictionary 1756 (11th ed.
2009).
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 457
Alito, J., dissenting
Grant of Parlyament for longer time or in other manner than
the same is or shall be granted is Illegall.â 1 Wm. 3 & Mary
2, c. 2 (1688). In other words, to ensure âthat it was
supreme in directing the use of [all] public funds,â Parlia-
ment âasserted that any use of funds by the monarch that
lacked Parliament's authorization was unlawful.â Congres-
sional Research Service, S. Stiff, Congress's Power Over
Appropriations: Constitutional and Statutory Provisions 8
(2020).
These steps, however, did not cement Parliament's power
of the purse. Royal offcers continued to collect revenue and
to evade the appropriations requirement by exaggerating
collection costs, giving very little in ânet receiptsâ to Parlia-
ment, and keeping the rest for the use of the Crown. P. Ein-
zig, The Control of the Purse 164, 188 (1959) (Einzig). So
Parliament took steps to crack down on this practice. Id.,
at 188. In 1711, for example, Parliament passed a resolution
Page Proof Pending Publication
declaring that â `applying any sum of un-appropriated money,
or surplusages of funds to usages not voted, or addressed
for by parliament, hath been a misapplication of the public
money.' â 6 Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England
1025 (1810).
Parliament also appointed a commission to prevent the
Crown from defying the appropriations requirement. In
that commission's very frst report, it recommended that
â[r]evenue should come from the Pocket of the Subject di-
rectly into the Exchequer.â Report Relative to the Bal-
ances in the Hands of the Receivers General of the Land
Tax, Nov. 27, 1780 (First Report), reprinted in 1 Reports of
the Commissioners Appointed To Examine, Take, and State
the Public Accounts of the Kingdom 14 (W. Molleson ed.
1783). Permitting revenue departments to retain or divert
any public funds, the Commissioners concluded, would create
a âprivate Interest . . . in direct Opposition to that of the
Public.â Ibid. Finally, Parliament took an increasingly
âfrmer line . . . against virement, that is, the transfer of
458 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
funds appropriated for one department for the use of another
department.â Einzig 144.
2
The Court's treatment of this history begins by conceding
most of what I have recounted. The Court notes that after
the Revolution of 1688, âParliament's usual practice was to
appropriate government revenue `to particular purposes
more or less narrowly defned,' â and âParliament began lim-
iting the duration of its revenue grants.â Ante, at 428 (quot-
ing Maitland 433). â `Every year,' â the Court continues, the
King and his ministers â `had to come, cap in hand, to the
House of Commons, and more often than not the Commons
drove a bargain and exacted a quid pro quo in return for
supply.' â Ante, at 429 (quoting G. Trevelyan, The English
Revolution of 1688â1689, pp. 180â181 (1939)).
In an effort to fnd a trace of helpful precedent in pre-
founding British constitutional history, the Court turns to
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laws appropriating funds for the âcivil list,â which it touts
as a particularly ânotable exceptionâ to the centuries-long
understanding of appropriations. Ante, at 429, 432, 439. In
truth, however, Parliament's treatment of the civil list actu-
ally undermines the Court's position. The civil list, al-
though renamed in 2012, remains to this day, and it consists
of the money needed to cover the expenses of the royal fam-
ily.9 By the end of the 17th century, âthe Civil List was a
relatively small share of the total public expenditure,â but
the independence it afforded the Crown âpresented a consti-
tutional problem in the confict between the principle of the
independence of the Crown and the principle of parlia-
mentary control of fnance.â E. Reitan, The Civil List in
Eighteenth-Century British Politics: Parliamentary Suprem-
acy Versus the Independence of the Crown, 9 Hist. J. 318,
320, 322 (1966) (Reitan).
9
See Royal Finances, https://www.royal.uk/royal-finances (Apr. 22,
2024).
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 459
Alito, J., dissenting
To prevent the Crown from using the civil list to erode
Parliament's hard-fought supremacy over the purse, eminent
statesmen like Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox began
pushing for substantial reforms. Id., at 328â337. Begin-
ning in 1760, Parliament enacted a series of laws that altered
the appropriation of civil list funds. Id., at 324; see, e.g.,
1 H. Cavendish, Debates of the House of Commons 267â307
(1841). And by 1782, Parliament fnally secured its âright
. . . to interfere at its discretion in the affairs of the Civil
List.â Reitan 336â337. âThe eighteenth-century tension
between the conficting principles of parliamentary suprem-
acy and an independent fnancial provision for the Crown had
been resolvedâas it had to beâin favour of parliamentary
supremacy.â Id., at 336.
C
1
âThe conficts between Parliament and the Crown over the
Page Proof Pending Publication
power of the purse . . . were replayed in the American colo-
nies in struggles between the royal governors and provincial
assemblies.â R. Rosen, Funding âNon-Traditionalâ Military
Operations: The Alluring Myth of a Presidential Power of
the Purse, 155 Mil. L. Rev. 1, 44 (1998); see also P. Wolfson,
Is a Presidential Item Veto Constitutional? 96 Yale L. J.
838, 841â842 (1987). But learning from Parliament's experi-
ences with the monarchy, some of the American Colonies as-
sumed appropriations authority âgreater even than that of
the British House of Commons,â exercising signifcant audit-
ing powers and legislative oversight. J. Greene, The Quest
for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern
Royal Colonies 106 (1963). Indeed, by 1787, all but one of
the 11 State Constitutions provided their respective legisla-
tures with some control over appropriations; and no State
allowed the executive to draw money from the state treasury
without legislative approval. Chafetz 55, and nn. 119â120
(citing provisions); see also The Federalist No. 48, at 310
460 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
(J. Madison) (noting that, under many state constitutions,
âthe legislative department alone has access to the pockets
of the peopleâ).
The Framers built on this legacy at the Constitutional
Convention when they adopted the Appropriations Clause,
which they âwell understoodâ would âcomplet[e] the power
vested in Congress over money.â 7 Annals of Cong. 1124
(1798) (statement of Rep. Albert Gallatin). The Clause not
only âgives to the Legislature an exclusive authority of rais-
ing and granting money,â but it also obligates Congress to
keep that authority from âthe hands of the Executiveâ at all
times thereafter. Ibid. It makes the President âdepen[d]
on the will of [Congress] for supplies of moneyâ in the frst
instance and puts him continually âin a state of subordinate
dependenceâ to the people's elected representatives. 3 De-
bates on the Constitution 17 (J. Elliot ed. 1836) (statement of
Wilson Nicholas). The Appropriations Clause enables Con-
Page Proof Pending Publication
gress, âwithout the concurrence of the other branches, to
check, by refusing money, any mischief in the operations car-
rying on in any department of the Government.â 5 Annals
of Cong. 509 (1796) (statement of Rep. William Branch Giles)
(emphasis added).
Early budgets illustrate how the appropriations power
was understood. Although the Constitution does not re-
quire that appropriations be limited to a single year, that
was the dominant practice in the years immediately follow-
ing the adoption of the Constitution. See ante, at 432. And
while the frst few appropriations laws were brief and lacked
details about how the money was to be spent, the amounts
approved closely tracked the estimates submitted by Secre-
tary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. See Chafetz
58â59. Indeed, the second appropriations act expressly in-
corporated the estimates of specifc expenses contained in
Hamilton's report to Congress. Compare Appropriations
Act, § 1, 1 Stat. 104, with 5 American State Papers: Finance
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 461
Alito, J., dissenting
33 (1832). As a result, Congress clearly contemplated that
the money would be devoted toward particular purposes.
In the mid-1790s, appropriations laws became even more
specifc. Chafetz 59. And when Thomas Jefferson became
President, he urged Congress âto multiply barriers againstâ
the âdissipationâ of public funds by âappropriating specifc
sums to every specifc purpose susceptible of defnition,â and
âby disallowing applications of money varying from the ap-
propriation in object, or transcending it in amount.â First
Annual Message (Dec. 8, 1801), reprinted in 9 The Works of
Thomas Jefferson 336 (P. Ford ed. 1905); see also Letter from
Albert Gallatin to Thomas Jefferson (Nov. 1801), reprinted
in 1 The Writings of Albert Gallatin 68 (H. Adams ed. 1879)
(âCongress should adopt such measures as will effectually
guard against misapplication of public moneysâ).
To be sure, not all early funding laws followed the domi-
nant model of specifed short-term appropriations. Agen-
cies that provided services to a particular segment of the
Page Proof Pending Publication
public were funded by fees that were paid by the recipients
of those services. See, e. g., Act of Feb. 20, 1792, §§ 2â3, 1
Stat. 233â234 (funding the Post Offce through collection of
postage rates); Act of Apr. 2, 1792, ch. 16, §§ 1, 14, 1 Stat. 246,
249 (funding the National Mint in part through collection of
fees); Act of July 31, 1789, § 29, 1 Stat. 44â45 (funding cus-
toms collection through tonnage fees). If these fees ex-
ceeded the costs of providing the services, however, these
agencies were required to send the surplus to the Treasury,
which oversaw the collection and use of such fees.10
10
At the founding, it was well understood that âthe unexpended balance
of any appropriation after a given period passes to the surplus fund.â 16
Annals of Cong. 393 (1807) (statement of Rep. David Thomas). See, e. g.,
Act of Feb. 11, 1791, ch. 6, 1 Stat. 190 (recognizing default rule that surplus
funds return to the Treasury); see also Act of Feb. 20, 1792, §§ 3â4, 1 Stat.
234 (requiring the Postmaster General to âpay, quarterly, into the treasury
of the United States, the balanceâ of any receipts after using them to
âdefray the expenseâ of services provided); Act of July 31, 1789, § 38, 1
462 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
As the Government notes, Brief for Petitioners 21â22, this
practice had deep historical roots, see N. Parrillo, Against
the Proft Motive 65 (2013) (Parrillo),11 and was presumably
based on the idea that the cost of providing certain services
should be borne by the recipients of those services rather
than the general public. At the same time, the requirement
that fees in excess of what was needed to defray the cost of
providing services be turned over to the Treasury ensured
that Congress maintained control over the ways in which
this money was spent. Under these arrangements, there-
fore, Congress exercised close control over both the amount
of money that the agencies in question obtained and the way
in which that money was used. The agencies received and
were allowed to use the amount of money necessary to pro-
vide their narrowly prescribed services. All the rest was
sent to the Treasury and could then be used only as author-
ized by a congressional appropriation.
Page Proof Pending
2 Publication
In discussing this early American history, the Court be-
gins by essentially conceding the principal lesson outlined
above. As the Court candidly puts it, â `[w]hen called upon
to grant supplies,' the lower houses in the colonial assemblies
`insisted upon appropriating them in detail.' â Ante, at 430.12
The best the Court can muster to support its assertion that
âstate legislative bodies often opted for open-ended, discre-
tionary appropriationsâ are a few minor state laws that,
when understood in relation to the Constitutions of the
Stat. 48 (providing that an unexpended portion of all customs and fnes
shall be âpaid into the treasuryâ thereof); Act of Sept. 2, 1789, ch. 12, § 2,
1 Stat. 65 (â[I]t shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to . . .
superintend the collection of the revenueâ).
11
Parliament and ânearly all the American colonial legislaturesâ used
such fees âto cover many and sometimes all of the offces within their
respective bounds.â Parrillo 65.
12
Many sources document this general approach. See, e. g., P. Figley &
J. Tidmarsh, The Appropriations Power and Sovereign Immunity, 107
Mich. L. Rev. 1207, 1244 (2009).
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 463
Alito, J., dissenting
States in question, provide no support for the Court's argu-
ment. Ibid.13
* * *
In sum, centuries of historical practice show that the Ap-
propriations Clause demands legislative control over the
source and disposition of the money used to fnance Govern-
ment operations and projects.14
13
Citing two Massachusetts laws directing that certain revenue be used
for broadly defned purposes, the Court infers that the executive enjoyed
wide discretion to decide how this money would be spent, see ante, at 430,
but this inference is unwarranted. One of the two Massachusetts laws
cited by the Court, Act of Nov. 17, 1786, 1786 Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 47,
p. 117, clearly illustrates this point. That law stated expressly that the
revenue in question was to be paid âinto the Treasury of this Common-
wealth, for the exigencies of Government.â Ibid. Under the State Con-
stitution, this money could be not be taken from the treasury without the
approval of the legislature. See Mass. Const. of 1780, ch. 2, § 1, Art. XI.
And to fortify legislative control, the state treasurer was elected annually
Page Proof Pending Publication
by the legislature. Id., ch. 2, § 4.
As another supposed example of a state law giving the executive wide
discretion to decide how funds could be spent, the Court cites a Maryland
law specifying that certain revenue was to be used for the general purpose
of defending the Chesapeake Bay and protecting trade. 1783 Md. Acts
ch. 26, § 5, reprinted in 1 W. Kilty, The Laws of Maryland (1799). The
Court overlooks the fact that under the State's Constitution, the two state
treasurers were appointed by and served at the pleasure of the legislature,
Maryland Constitution of 1776, Art. XIII, and the legislature was specif-
cally authorized to âexamine and pass all accounts of the State, relating
either to the collection or expenditure of the revenue, or appoint auditors,
to state and adjust the same,â Art. X.
Finally, the Court points to a Virginia law, ante, at 430, but again the
Court overlooks the structure of the Virginia government. Under the
Virginia Constitution of 1776, the treasurer was elected annually by the
legislature, and this obviously gave the legislature extensive power over
expenditures. Virginia Constitution of 1776, ¶17; see Chafetz 55 (refer-
ring to the Virginia Legislature's authority over the state treasurer as an
âexplicit mechanism of legislative control over appropriationsâ).
14
Not content to rest on the Court's argument, which relies on the
Court's understanding of the original meaning of the Appropriations
Clause, four Justices advance an entirely different rationale, namely, that
congressional practice in the ensuing centuries supports the constitution-
464 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
III
A
As the previous discussion shows, today's case turns on
a simple question: Is the CFPB fnancially accountable to
Congress in the way the Appropriations Clause demands?
History tells us it is not. As we said in Seila Law, â `[p]er-
haps the most telling indication of [a] severe constitutional
problem' with an executive entity `is [a] lack of historical
precedent' to support it.â 591 U. S., at 220 (quoting Free
Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight
Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 505 (2010)). And the Government agrees
with this principle. In its briefng and at argument, the
Government admitted that an utterly unprecedented funding
scheme would raise a serious constitutional problem. Reply
Brief 18; Tr. of Oral Arg. 11, 26. The Government therefore
attempts to show that there is ample precedent for the
CFPB scheme, but that effort fails.
Page Proof Pending Publication
The CFPB's funding scheme contains the following fea-
tures: (1) it applies in perpetuity; (2) the CFPB has discre-
tion to select the amount of funding that it receives, up to a
statutory cap; (3) the funds taken by the CFPB come from
other entities; (4) those entities are self-funded corporations
that obtain their funding from fees on private parties, ânot
departments of the Government,â Emergency Fleet Corp.,
275 U. S., at 426; (5) the CFPB is not required to return un-
ality of the CFPB's scheme. Ante, at 441 (Kagan, J., concurring). This
argument is doubly fawed. First, the concurrence cannot point to any
other law that created a funding scheme like the CFPB's. Second, as
explained by Justice Scalia, the separation of powers mandated by the
Constitution cannot be altered by a course of practice at odds with our
national charter. See NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U. S. 513, 571â572
(2014) (opinion concurring in judgment). â[P]olicing the `enduring struc-
ture' of constitutional government when the political branches fail to do
so is `one of the most vital functions of this Court.' â Id., at 572 (quoting
Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U. S. 440, 468 (1989) (Ken-
nedy, J., concurring in judgment)).
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 465
Alito, J., dissenting
spent funds or transfer them to the Treasury; and (6) those
funds may be placed in a separate fund that earns interest
and may be used to pay the CFPB's expenses in the future.
At argument, the Government was unable to cite any other
agency with a funding scheme like this, see Tr. of Oral Arg.
31â33, 39â41, and thus no other agencyâold or newâhas
enjoyed so many layers of insulation from accountability to
Congress.
The Government points to the Post Offce and the Customs
Service as founding-era precedents for the CFPB, but the
analogy is fawed. As noted, funding Government agencies
with fees charged to the benefciaries of their services has
long been viewed as consistent with the appropriations re-
quirement. And both the Post Offce and the Customs Serv-
ice fell comfortably into that category.
A quick look at the laws that set up the Post Offce and
the Customs Service shows that they were nothing like the
Page Proof Pending Publication
CFPB. In the Act establishing the Post Offce, Congress
gave that agency a narrow and specifc mission: to âprovide
for carrying the mail of the United States.â See, e. g., Act
of Feb. 20, 1792, § 3, 1 Stat. 234. The Postmaster's discre-
tionary authority was modest. (He could, for example, de-
cide whether mail should be carried on particular routes âby
stage carriages or horses.â Ibid.) The Act specifed in min-
ute detail the fees that could be collected from those who
used the Post Offce's services. § 9, id., at 235. And it re-
quired the Postmaster âto render to the secretary of the
treasury, a quarterly account of all the receipts and expendi-
turesâ and to âpay quarterly, into the treasury . . . , the bal-
ance in his hands.â § 4, id., at 234. Under this arrange-
ment, Congress controlled the amount that the Post Offce
took in (i. e., the sum total of the fees specifed by law) and
how those fees were to be spent (i. e., to provide for carrying
the mail).
Much the same is true with respect to the Customs Serv-
ice, which the Government claims âbestâ resembles the
466 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
CFPB. Tr. of Oral Arg. 31. Like the Post Offce, the Cus-
toms Service had a carefully delineated missionâbasically,
to control imports and exports, and to collect duties and
other payments from those engaged in those activities. To
maintain accountability, the early tariff Acts spelled out in
excruciating detail the various fees, fnes, and forfeitures
that offcers were to collect, as well as the salaries and com-
missions that were to be paid out of those receipts. Act of
July 31, 1789, ch. 5, 1 Stat. 29â49; L. Schmeckebier, The Cus-
toms Service: Its History, Activities and Organization 3â6
(1924). Surplus funds had to be sent to the Treasury, Act of
July 31, 1789, §§ 9, 38, 1 Stat. 38, 48, and for many years,
these funds were the lifeblood of the Federal Government.
From 1789 to 1862, â[n]early all of federal revenue was de-
rived from customs duties.â A. Reamer, Before the U. S.
Tariff Commission: Congressional Efforts To Obtain Statis-
tics and Analysis for Tariff-setting, 1789â1916, in A Cen-
tennial History of the United States International Trade
Page Proof Pending Publication
Commission 35 (2017).15
The CFPB, by contrast, is an entirely different creature.
Its powers are broad and vast. It enjoys substantial discre-
tionary authority. It does not collect fees from persons and
entities to which it provides services or persons and entities
that are subject to its authority. And it is permitted to keep
and invest surplus funds. In short, the Government's âbestâ
argument fails.
The Government's next-best analogs fare no better. Mov-
ing to modern agencies, the Government claims that the
CFPB's funding scheme is not materially different from the
funding schemes of a list of other currently existing agencies.
See Brief for Petitioners 22â23, 29â36 (comparing the CFPB
to the Offce of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National
15
âIn 1792, for example, customs duties . . . accounted for $3.4 million of
the $3.7 million of total government receipts.â Founding Choices: Ameri-
can Economic Policy in the 1790s, p. 101 (D. Irwin & R. Sylla eds. 2010).
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 467
Alito, J., dissenting
Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Farm Credit Ad-
ministration (FCA), the Federal Housing Finance Agency
(FHFA), and others).
But unlike the CFPB, the agencies cited by the Govern-
ment are funded in whole or in part by fees charged those
who make use of their services or are subject to their regula-
tion. This is true for the OCC, see 12 U. S. C. § 16; the
FDIC, see § 1815; the NCUA, see § 1755; the FCA, § 2250;
and the FHFA, see § 4516.16
For these reasons, it is undeniable that the combination of
features in the CFPB funding scheme is unprecedented.
And it is likewise clear that this assemblage was no accident.
Rather, it was carefully designed to give the Bureau maxi-
mum unaccountability. Our decision in Seila Law ad-
dressed part of the problem posed by this arrangement. It
made the CFPB accountable to the President, but that deci-
sion did nothing to protect Congress's power of the purse.
Indeed, standing alone, Seila Law worsens the appropria-
Page Proof Pending Publication
tions problem. The appropriations requirement developed
to ensure that the Executive (in England, the monarch)
would be accountable to the people's elected representatives.
16
The Government also suggested that the Federal Reserve Board is a
close historical analog for the CFPB. Brief for Petitioners 23; Tr. of Oral
Arg. 41. But that setup should not be seen as a model for other Govern-
ment bodies. The Board, which is funded by the earnings of the Federal
Reserve Banks, 12 U. S. C. §§ 243, 244, is a unique institution with a unique
historical background. It includes the creation and demise of the First
and Second Banks of the United States, as well as the string of fnancial
panics (in 1873, 1893, and 1907) that were widely attributed to the coun-
try's lack of a national bank. See generally O. Sprague, History of Crises
Under the National Banking System, S. Doc. No. 538, 61st Cong., 2d Sess.
(1910). The structure adopted in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 repre-
sented an intensely-bargained compromise between two insistent and in-
fuential camps: those who wanted a largely private system, and those who
favored a Government-controlled national bank. See, e. g., R. Lowenstein,
America's Bank 5â8, 113â116, 265 (2015). For Appropriations Clause pur-
poses, the funding of the Federal Reserve Board should be regarded as a
special arrangement sanctioned by history.
468 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
Seila Law, however, increased the power of the Executive
over appropriations. By brandishing or wielding the threat
of removal, a President may push the CFPB director to req-
uisition the amount of money that the President thinks is
appropriate and to spend that money as the President
wishes. I joined the decision in Seila Law and continue to
believe that it was correctly decided, but it solved only half
the accountability problem that inheres in the CFPB's
structure.
B
Left with no analog in history, the Government employs a
divide-and-conquer strategy to defend the CFPB's funding
scheme. It argues that even if no prior agency had a fund-
ing scheme with all the features of the CFPB's, the funding
schemes of other presumptively constitutional agencies con-
tain one or more of the features found in the CFPB's scheme.
It then reasons that the combination of these features in the
Page Proof Pending Publication
CFPB's scheme must be constitutional as well.
This argument founders for two reasons. First, the
CFPB's scheme includes an important feature never before
seen. As explained, the CFPB's money does not come from
Congress, from private recipients of its services, or from pri-
vate entities that it regulates. It does not even originate
with another Government agency. Instead, the CFPB gets
its money via a three-step process: The Federal Reserve
Banks earn money from the purchase and sale of securities,
as well as from the fees they charge for providing services
to depository institutions. The Federal Reserve Banks
then deliver these earnings to the Federal Reserve System.
Finally, the CFPB requests an amount from the Federal Re-
serve Board. That feature of the CFPB scheme is entirely
new.
Second, the Government's argument fails âto engage with
the Dodd-Frank Act as a whole.â Seila Law, 591 U. S., at
230. By addressing the individual elements of the CFPB's
setup one-by-one, the Government seeks to divert attention
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 469
Alito, J., dissenting
from the combined layers that insulate the CFPB from ac-
countability to Congress. Elements that are safe or tolera-
ble in isolation may be unsafe when combined. In the case
of the CFPB, the combination is deadly. The whole point of
the appropriations requirement is to protect âthe right of
the people,â through their elected representatives in Con-
gress, to âbe actually consultedâ about the expenditure of
public money. St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution
of the United States 297 (1803) (C. Wilson ed. 1999). The
CFPB's design strips the people of this power.
The Federal Reserve's earnings represent âspecific
charges for specifc services to specifc individuals or compa-
nies.â FPC v. New England Power Co., 415 U. S. 345, 349
(1974). It would be âa sharp break with our traditionsâ to
allow the CFPB to use these earnings to fund a broader
array of governmental activities that have little-to-no rela-
tionship with those specifc charges, services, and regulated
Page Proof Pending Publication
entities. National Cable Television Assn., Inc. v. United
States, 415 U. S. 336, 341 (1974). By allowing the CFPB to
use the Federal Reserve's earnings to enforce and implement
broader consumer protection laws, Congress impermissibly
removed the CFPB âfrom its customary orbitâ as an agency,
authorizing the Bureau to appropriate funds obtained from
private sources âin the manner of an Appropriations Com-
mittee.â Ibid. In other words, Congress abdicated its ap-
propriations authority, an exclusively legislative prerogative.
Knote v. United States, 95 U. S. 149, 156 (1877). But Con-
gress lacks the authority to âtransfer to another branch pow-
ers which are strictly and exclusively legislative.â Gundy
v. United States, 588 U. S. 128, 135 (2019) (plurality opinion)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
In sum, the CFPB's unprecedented combination of funding
features affords it the very kind of fnancial independence
that the Appropriations Clause was designed to prevent. It
is not an exaggeration to say that the CFPB enjoys a degree
of fnancial autonomy that a Stuart king would envy.
470 CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU v. COMMU-
NITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSN. OF AMERICA, LTD.
Alito, J., dissenting
C
This autonomy has real-world consequences. The CFPB
is a powerful agency with the authority to impose âsubstan-
tive rules [on] a wide swath of industriesâ and âlev[y] knee-
buckling penalties against private citizens.â Seila Law, 591
U. S., at 222, n. 8. In the last several months alone, the Bu-
reau has announced plans to effectuate not one, but three
major changes in consumer protection law. The CFPB has
issued guidance cautioning fnancial institutions from âdeny-
ing credit to individuals based on their [illegal] immigration
status, regardless of their personal circumstances and dem-
onstrated ability to repay.â 17 It has also begun âa rule-
making process to remove medical bills from Americans'
credit reportsâ 18 and to cap overdraft fees âat an established
benchmarkâas low as $3.â 19 These may or may not be wise
policies, but Congress did not specifcally authorize any of
them, and if the CFPB's fnancing scheme is sustained, Con-
Page Proof Pending Publication
gress cannot control or monitor the CFPB's use of funds to
implement such changes. That is precisely what the Appro-
priations Clause was meant to prevent.
* * *
The Court holds that the Appropriations Clause is satisfed
by any law that authorizes the Executive to take any amount
of money from any source for any period of time for any
lawful purpose. That holding has the virtue of clarity, but
17
Press Release, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB and Jus-
tice Department Issue Joint Statement Cautioning That Financial Institu-
tions May Not Use Immigration Status To Illegally Discriminate Against
Credit Applicants (Oct. 12, 2023).
18
Press Release, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB Kicks
Off Rulemaking To Remove Medical Bills From Credit Reports (Sept.
21, 2023).
19
Press Release, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB Pro-
poses Rule To Close Bank Overdraft Loophole That Costs Americans Bil-
lions Each Year in Junk Fees (Jan. 17, 2024).
Cite as: 601 U. S. 416 (2024) 471
Alito, J., dissenting
such clarity comes at too high a price. There are times
when it is our duty to say simply that a law that blatantly
attempts to circumvent the Constitution goes too far. This
is such a case. Today's decision is not faithful to the original
understanding of the Appropriations Clause and the centu-
ries of history that gave birth to the appropriations require-
ment,20 and I therefore respectfully dissent.
Page Proof Pending Publication
20
At the end of its opinion, the Court suggests that broad separation of
powers principles may provide more protection for Congress's power of
the purse than does the Appropriations Clause. Ante, at 437â438. But
we do not generally resort to broad principles when a provision of the
Constitution specifcally addresses the question at hand. See County of
Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U. S. 833, 843 (1998). At any rate, since the
decision below relied on both the Appropriations Clause and broad separa-
tion of powers principles, 51 F. 4th 616, 635 (CA5 2022), it is not clear why
the Court does not proceed to apply those principles.
Reporterâs Note
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
Page Proof Pending Publication
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant
punctuation. The following additional edits were made:
None