McKernan Nomination Awaits Full Senate Consideration; Vote Expected in May

Full Senate consideration for Jonathan McKernan to become director of the CFPB is not officially scheduled but is expected to take place in May based on recent comments by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.). As we previously reported, President Donald Trump nominated McKernan on Feb. 10, 2025.

On March 6, 2025, the committee headed by Scott advanced McKernan's nomination in a 13-11 vote along party lines, with all Democrats opposing. That vote was preceded by a confirmation hearing with the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on Feb. 27, 2025.

During the hearing, McKernan emphasized that if confirmed, he would "fully and faithfully execute the law" and that under his watch, the CFPB would "take all steps necessary to implement and enforce the federal consumer financial laws and perform each of its other statutorily assigned functions. " McKernan remarked that the CFPB would do so "by centering its regulation on real risks to consumers and by focusing its enforcement on bad actors."

In response to questioning, McKernan took the position that the CFPB is not a "prudential regulator" and further stated that he would not "evaluate the success" of the agency based on the "dollar figure " of money returned to consumers. Instead, he indicated that his primary goal is to create a more streamlined and efficient regulator and that he plans to lead the CFPB in a manner that would "advance the President's pro-growth agenda."

Finally, McKernan noted that he wished to continue the work his predecessor, Rohit Chopra, started to increase attention on some of the various policy issues posed by data collectors, including data aggregators or brokers. Noting the privacy and national security issues at play here, McKernan said, "It's important that we – both in the regulated space and then the rest of our elected officials – continue to focus on this. As these entities are collecting more and more data and the analytics get more and more powerful, there are some real policy issues here."

Visit Holland & Knight's resource center, CFPB Dispatch: Legal Updates and Insights, to stay on top of the latest CFPB developments.