The Senate voted 51 to 50 late Tuesday to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule banning mandatory arbitration clauses in financial contracts. Vice-President Pence cast the deciding vote to break the tie. Senate Republicans relied on the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”) to overturn the CFPB’s anti-Arbitration Rule. The CFPB’s Rule had been challenged by the Department of Treasury as well as by civil litigation filed by financial services trade groups. Under the CRA, Congress may — as did tonight — rescind a new rule through a joint “resolution of disapproval” that must be passed by a simple majority in both the House and Senate and signed by President Trump. Under the CRA, upon the president’s signature of a joint resolution disapproving a rule, rule is invalidated immediately and the issuing agency is prohibited from promulgating a new rule that is “substantially the same as [the rescinded] rule . . . unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule.” 5 U.S.C. § 805.
A copy of the Senate Resolution is here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/47/text