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Deceptive and abusive mortgage lending was a fundamental cause of the financial crisis and of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Year in and year out, tricks and traps on credit cards, student loans, overdraft fees and more cost working families tens of billions of dollars.

In response, we fought for and won a new consumer bureau so that consumers can have a cop on the beat, with fair play and the public interest as its first priority. On July 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB - the first ever agency with the sole mission of policing the consumer financial markets and preventing abusive, deceptive and discriminatory lending - opened its doors.

Unfortunately, big Wall Street banks, other powerful financial industry special interests and their allies in Congress are still fighting the very idea of a bureau. They have been blocking the appointment of a director for the bureau to keep it from being able to fully do its job. Without a director, the bureau does not gain its full authority to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. It cannot fully oversee payday lenders, mortgage companies, private student lenders or credit bureaus.

Wisconsin families are in urgent need of a fully authorized CFPB. According to the University of Wisconsin Extension, foreclosures in the state rose 340% from 2000 to 2010. Wisconsin still has not recovered from the foreclosure crisis triggered by predatory mortgage lending. And, as recently reported in the Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin's 2010 college graduates finished with an average $24,627 in student loan debt, just a hair under the national average but still a significant sum. A strong CFPB is needed to protect Wisconsin homeowners and students, as well as our veterans and other consumers, from these and other financial problems.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday will finally be voting on the president's appointee to direct the CFPB, Richard Cordray. We strongly urge Wisconsin Sens. Herb Kohl and Ron Johnson to stand with consumers and confirm Cordray.

Cordray is eminently qualified to be that director. As Ohio attorney general, he recovered over $2 billion from Wall Street to repay Ohio's wrongly foreclosed consumers and the state's looted pension funds, cities and counties.

His nomination is supported by Ohio banks, businesses and political leaders from all sides. Just recently, 37 state attorneys general and members of both parties sent a letter to the Senate urging Cordray's confirmation. A group of Ohio business leaders noted in a letter, "As a County Treasurer, State Treasurer and State Attorney General, he has been the epitome of the judicious and fair-minded public servant. He has impressed us with his intelligence, pragmatism, integrity, and service-oriented mindset."

According to a recent poll, 77% of Americans - Republican, Democratic and independent - favor tough, sensible oversight of the financial services industry, including a strong and independent CFPB. We need the CFPB up and running to help get our economy back on track and to keep loans like the ones that caused the financial crisis from ever dominating the market again.

After the economic collapse in 2008, Congress asked taxpayers to bail out the big banks. Only in 2010 did Congress finally pass the historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to protect consumers from a repeat of the nightmare. To make that promise real, we need a strong CFPB with a consumer cop on the beat looking out for average Americans.

Our senators have a clear choice: Support Cordray so the CFPB can guarantee fair rules of the road for all financial products, or let Wall Street banks and payday lenders keep gouging consumers and working families.

Bruce Speight is director of WISPIRG, the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (www.wispirg.org).