When the nation’s housing crisis—fueled by “unscrupulous operators looking to make fast cash”–was beginning to explode, writes Richard Cordray, newly appointed head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), in a column on Politico:

No single federal government agency was focused on viewing the markets for financial products and services from the perspective of the consumer. That was a tragic error.

But now with President Obama’s recent appointment of Cordray—opposed BTW by every single Senate Republican—the CFPB is beginning to issue and develop new rules to protect current and future homeowners from the kind of  practices that melted down the nation’s housing market, a housing market in which as many as 10 million homeowners at danger of default, according to Cordray.

But if union and consumer activists had not stepped up strongly in support of Obama’s breaking the Republican stranglehold on Cordray’s nomination, it is likely some observers say, that CFPB would still be without a leader and Republicans would be emboldened even more in the efforts to dismantle the Wall Street reform law—Dodd-Frank—that created the agency.

Click here to read Cordray’s full column outlining the current and upcoming steps the CFPB is taking to fulfill its mission to protect the nation’s financial products consumers.