Time after time Republicans have tried to defang the CFPB.

Make it subject to appropriations. The Senate didn't buy it.Take away its supervisory powers. The Senate again. Abolish it.Nobody could get that done.

But with the departure of Richard Cordray, President Trump canselect his own person to run the agency.

Now what?

For the time being, Office of Management and Budget DirectorMick Mulvaney is serving as interim director until Trump nominatesa permanent director.

Any Trump selection will have to be confirmed by the Senate,where Democrats are certain to object to the choice. But there'slittle they can do about it.

In decades past, nominees such as the director of the CFPB couldbe subject to a filibuster; that would mean it would take 60 votesto approve the nomination. That is no longer the case. In 2013,with Senate Republicans blocking some Obama Administrationnominees, Senate Democrats pushed through a rule change thatprohibits filibusters for most nominees.

But the nominee still is likely to face grilling from theDemocrats, said former NCUA Board Chairman Geoff Bacino, now apartner with Bacino & Associates.

“I would expect that Democrats will put up a big fight andexamine every aspect of the nominee's background,” he said.

The CFPB has become a lightning rod for the philosophicaldifferences between the parties, John McKechnie, senior partner atTotal Spectrum, said.

“Senate Banking Committee staff on both sides of the aisle arealready saying that a bruising confirmation battle is certain,regardless of who the president selects,” he said. “That's becausethe CFPB, since day one, has been a metaphor for how liberals andconservatives view government. So there's a tremendous amount ofsimmering ideological anger about to boil over when the nomineegets to the Senate.”

Several names for possible nominees for the agency include HouseFinancial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and KeithNoreika, who served as acting comptroller at the Office ofComptroller of the Currency.

Hensarling has been the primary sponsor of legislation togreatly reduce the agency's powers. Noreika and Cordray recentlyhad a public battle over the agency's rule to restrict mandatoryarbitration agreements.

Congress nullified those rules.

Ultimately, Democrats have little leverage over whether anominee will be confirmed.

Still, the nomination and confirmation processes take time. AndMcKechnie said he expects Mulvaney to do more than simply keep theseat warm for a permanent director.

“From the outside, Mulvaney's approach will appear methodical,but I suspect internally he will be aggressive in putting a stop tosome of the more activist CFPB enforcement and rulemakings that hehas objected to in the past,” he said. “I don't think PresidentTrump put him in place to be a caretaker.”

Once a nominee is confirmed, that person will be walking into anagency filled with people hired by Cordray and his staff. Thosepeople are used to approaching their jobs with a certain regulatoryzeal that a Trump nominee likely will reject.

With the exception of the director, “Everyone else is a careeremployee,” Ryan Donovan, CUNA's chief advocacy officer, said.

“You're not going to be the most popular person in the world[and you shouldn't] expect to be,” Bruce Jolly, an attorney withReed & Jolly, said.

Mulvaney or a permanent nominee are likely to want to take theagency in a vastly different direction than Cordray. Mulvaneyalready has announced a 30-day moratorium on regulations and a30-day hiring freeze.

Any new director is likely to focus on enforcement issues beforetrying to repeal or change rules, NAFCU President/CEO B. Dan Bergersaid.

“Given the bureaucratic nature of rulemaking, it will not bequick or easy to rescind rules,” he said, adding, “What took yearsto put in place will likely not be changed overnight.”

Repealing rules falls under the Administrative Procedures Act,attorney Kathy Winger said. The process is the same as repealingrules and requires publication and public comment periods.

“Not surprisingly, this takes some time,” Winger said.

Rules that are not finalized are easier to hold back, sheadded.

Bacino said most agencies are governed by boards, which setpolicy. But since the CFPB is governed only by a single director,that person sets all of the policy. He said a new director couldease up on enforcement, or simply choose to ignore certainrules.

But on the regulatory side, Mulvaney last year was one of morethan 300 House members who signed a letter to Cordray saying thatthe agency was not taking the size of an institution into accountwhen it issued rules. The letter asked that Cordray exemptcommunity banks and credit unions from certain rules.

Berger said he hopes that Mulvaney and any permanent directorconcentrate on the large banks that caused the economic crisis.

And the trade groups hope that even though Mulvaney has issued amoratorium on new rules, he won't ignore rules the agency hasalready issued.

“When it comes to credit unions, what we need, and what NAFCUwill continue to push for, is relief from regulations that weremeant for the institutions that were responsible for the financialdownturn,” Berger said.

And that means looking back at rules the agency has alreadyissued.

“We're hoping that no new regulations doesn't mean they're notgoing to fix existing ones,” Donovan said.