We've joined a number of public interest, civil rights and housing organizations in support of a petition for appellate review of the decision in Cuomo v. Clearinghouse Association and OCC. In previous decisions, the court held that even in circumstances where the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) recognized that national banks still had to comply with state fair housing and consumer laws, that only it (the OCC), not state attorneys general or bank supervisors, could enforce those state laws.

The 2004 decision by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to displace states’ longstanding enforcement power with respect to state consumer protection and anti-discrimination laws severely disrupts states’ traditional law enforcement regimes. It directly contravenes this Court’s precedents and turns a fundamental principle of federalism on its head. The notion that valid and binding state laws may be enforced only by the national government is both perplexing and contrary to principles of federalism embedded within the Constitution.