WASHINGTON, D.C. -

If members of Congress wanted more ammunition for a crusade to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, perhaps a three-judge panel on the District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals provided just the thing.

An opinion released late last week said a previously dismissed lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the CFPB and its director could go forward. The case involves State National Bank, which is based in Big Spring, Texas. The bank is looking to prove the CFPB is unconstitutional, as well as how director Richard Cordray was appointed during a Congressional recess broke protocol, too.

Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion approved by the three-judge panel that also included Judges Judith Rogers and Cornelia Pillard.

“State National Bank claims that the bureau is unconstitutional. The bank is not a mere outsider asserting a constitutional objection to the bureau. The bank is regulated by the bureau. State National Bank offers and provides consumer financial products and services. The bureau has already exercised its broad regulatory authority to impose new obligations on banks, including State National Bank,” Kavanaugh wrote in the 15-page document that’s available here.

“To sum up: First, the bank has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that claim is ripe,” he continued. “We therefore reverse the judgment of the District Court on that claim and remand for it to consider in the first instance the bank’s constitutional challenge to the Bureau.

“Second, the bank has standing to challenge director Cordray’s recess appointment, and that claim is ripe,” Kavanaugh went on to say. “We therefore also reverse the judgment of the District Court on that claim and remand for it to consider in the first instance the bank’s constitutional challenge to the recess appointment.”

Not surprisingly, State National Bank chairman and chief executive officer Jim Purcell cheered the latest development of the matter that first surfaced in 2012.

“As a small community bank out in West Texas, we’ve always felt pretty vulnerable to the regulatory burdens imposed on us by Washington, D.C.,” Purcell said. “In recent years, that threat was epitomized for us by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency which was alarmingly free of traditional checks and balances.

“We never quite understood why the bureau objected to having its constitutionality tested in court. On behalf of the bank, its customers and the American public, we’re extremely gratified that we’ll now have the chance to put this agency to that test,” Purcell continued.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) — non-profit public policy organization and co-plaintiff in the lawsuit — applauded the judges’ opinion.

“The D.C. Circuit’s ruling today opens the door to a court test of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s constitutionality, CEI general counsel Sam Kazman said.

“Since Dodd-Frank’s enactment five years ago this month, the CFPB has inflicted damage on huge segments of our economy,” Kazmand continued. “Its powers are so free-roaming that they are unprecedented in our history. The fact that our standing to challenge the CFPB has been upheld is great news for us, the plaintiffs, and even greater news for the American public."

Last week as officials celebrated the birthday of the CFPB but also the Dodd-Frank Act that created the agency, Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. John Ratcliffe — who both represent Texas — introduced a measure to eliminate the bureau altogether.