Soon, the Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure. The court may have been unable to resist taking up Seila Law v. CFPB, which involves a governing agency’s total lack of checks and balances.

The unusual structure of the CFPB has been hotly debated. As a former chief of the consumer section of the Ohio attorney general’s office, and as an attorney practicing across the United States before local, state, and federal regulators, I’ve witnessed the critical need for the very checks and balances that are missing from the statute that created the CFPB. Congress has no role in appropriating its $500 million budget, and the president has no role in discretionary supervision of its powerful director.