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Leandra English is an American government official and political advisor serving as an advisor to the Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services. She formerly was the Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from November 24, 2017 until her resignation on July 9, 2018. As Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), by operation of law, she had served as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for one minute on November 25, 2017 immediately following the resignation of Director Richard Cordray taking effect at the stroke of midnight (12:00 A.M.) Eastern Standard Time (EST) on November 25, 2017 until President Donald Trump’s appointment of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took effect one minute later at 12:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on November 25, 2017. She was the plaintiff in the lawsuit English v. Trump, in which she unsuccessfully sought to have herself acknowledged as Acting Director of the CFPB.
English has received backing from a number of current and former Democratic legislators calling her the rightful Acting Director, including Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi, and former Barney Frank, co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act. A number of law professors also support her position, including Laurence Tribe, Marty Lederman, and Nina Mendelson.
The Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) allows the president to appoint an interim replacement for an appointed officer of an executive agency without Senate confirmation, but the FVRA does not provide the "exclusive means" for filling a vacancy when "a statutory provision...designates an officer or employee to perform the functions and duties of a specified office temporarily in an acting capacity." The law establishing the CFPB (the Dodd–Frank Act) is arguably unclear about whether the director's resignation qualifies as "unavailability" under FVRA, leading to confusion as to who would lead the agency and setting up a legal battle.
The Office of Legal Counsel has consistently interpreted the FVRA as providing a non-exclusive option for appointing a successor when another, more specific option exists in another statute (in this case, the Dodd–Frank Act). The Office of Legal Counsel thus released an opinion that the FVRA gives the President the right to appoint an interim successor in this case. The top lawyer at the CFPB concurred with the Trump administration's opinion and directed all staff at the agency to disregard English's claims to be the Acting Director.
She resigned from office on July 9, 2018, in light of President Trump's nomination of Kathy Kraninger to serve as CFPB director full-time. She was succeeded by Brian Johnson, who was appointed to serve in an acting capacity.
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