Elizabeth Ann Warren, Columnist
Don't Make a Bad Bill on Bank Deregulation Worse
The Senate version is dangerous enough, but the House wants to tack on an industry wish list.
By Kenneth P. Doyle
(Bloomberg Government) -- Elizabeth Warren thrills
progressives and chills Wall Street as she rails against a
political system she says favors big banks, lobbyists and other
well-heeled interests against middle-class and poor families
struggling to make ends meet. Those themes coursed through the
former Harvard law professor’s Senate floor speeches,
legislative proposals, books, and the 2020 Democratic
presidential primary campaign Warren lost to Joe Biden.
Warren’s call for “big structural change” in American
politics and economics led her briefly to front-runner status
early in the Democratic primary process but she dropped out of
the race in March 2020 after a string of losses in the Super
Tuesday primaries, including in her home state of Massachusetts.
She endorsed Biden the following month, saying he was the best
candidate to take on Donald Trump and restore “Americans’ faith
in good, effective government.”
Warren’s back in the Senate with Biden in the White House
and Democrats holding razor-thin majorities in both chambers of
Congress. She’s part of a broad-based team assembled by Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The progressive Warren serves
along with moderate Mark Warner of Virginia as one of two Senate
Democratic Conference co-chairs.
With a current term lasting through 2024, Warren has vowed
to “stay in the fight” for working people “who’ve gotten the
short end of the stick over and over.” She added: “That’s been
the fight of my life and it will continue to be so.”
Committee and Legislative Highlights
* Warren’s key presidential campaign proposals included curbing
income inequality through a wealth tax on Americans earning more
than $50 million, forgiving student debt and breaking up the
largest technology companies. She’s pushed the Biden
administration to take unilateral action to wipe out student
debt. In the 117th Congress, she joined the Senate Finance
Committee, giving her more ability to exercise influence over
tax policy.
* Earlier in her career, Warren proposed the creation of what
eventually became the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to
help shield Americans from predatory financial practices. As a
member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Committee, Warren called for stronger oversight of the country’s
biggest banks.
* Warren was a fierce critic of Trump during his term in office
and before that was mostly in alignment with the Obama
administration’s goals, though she pushed back against some
Obama trade policies as too lenient on multinational
corporations at the expense of workers. She also opposed Antonio
Weiss, an Obama Treasury Department nomination, saying the
administration didn’t need more Wall Street veterans. The White
House ended up withdrawing Weiss’ nomination to be
undersecretary for domestic finance.
* Warren has held a key position as the top Democrat on the
Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial
Institutions and Consumer Protection. She also serves on the
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee,
the Armed Services Committee and the Special Committee on Aging.
Politics and Personality
* Warren clashed frequently with Trump and Senate Republicans
during Trump’s administration. She was among the first to call
for Trump’s impeachment in April 2019, following the release of
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report about Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election, which she said
showed that Trump obstructed the investigation.
* In 2017, Senate Republicans issued a rebuke to Warren, saying
she was out of line for what they said were comments on the
Senate floor that “impugned” the integrity of Sen. Jeff Sessions
(Ala.), then Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement that Warren was
warned but “Nevertheless, she persisted” became a rallying cry
for her supporters resisting Trump.
* Warren’s transition from academic to politician began in 1995,
when she was asked by former Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.) , to join
a panel reviewing bankruptcy laws. Warren’s work attracted the
attention of Edward Kennedy (D), the long-serving Massachusetts
liberal whose Senate seat she now holds. At Warren’s urging,
Kennedy agreed to lead the fight against a bankruptcy bill
backed by credit card companies that Warren said were squeezing
consumers buffeted by medical bills and job losses. Warren said
she was so relieved by Kennedy’s willingness to take a leading
role that she cried on the elevator after leaving his office.
* Warren’s political involvement increased after the 2008
financial crisis, when she helped oversee implementation of the
Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $700 billion bailout of the
financial markets. She was a special adviser to the CFPB from
September 2010 to July 2011, though because of opposition by
some lawmakers on Capitol Hill and the banks, she was passed
over for head of the bureau in favor of Richard Cordray, a
former Ohio attorney general. In July 2011, the same day that
President Barack Obama nominated Cordray to lead the consumer
protection bureau, he and Warren talked about her entering the
Senate race against Republican Scott Brown, who had won a
special election in January 2010 to fill the term of Kennedy,
who died in August 2009.
* During the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Warren competed
with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for leadership of the
progressive wing of the party, with Warren ultimately hinting
she lost out due to sexism. She called the issue “the trap
question for every woman,” adding that to call out sexism is to
be labeled a “whiner,” while to say there’s no sexism leads
women to ask “What planet do you live on?”
Road to Office
Warren was born and reared in Oklahoma and was exposed to
economic hardship as a child. Warren’s mother took a job at
Sears to cover the mortgage, and Warren worked jobs as a
babysitter and a waitress at her aunt’s Mexican restaurant.
A high school graduate at age 16, she got a scholarship to
George Washington University, but left after two years, married
at age 19 and moved to Texas, where she finished her
undergraduate studies at the University of Houston — the first
member of her family to graduate from college. She entered law
school at Rutgers University in New Jersey when her daughter was
2 years old. After getting her law degree, she taught at several
universities before landing at Harvard Law School in the early
1990s. Her husband, Bruce Mann, is also a Harvard law professor.
After Warren decided to challenge Brown for a Senate seat,
they spent a combined more than $77 million on a close, hard-
fought race, which Warren won by more than 7 percentage points.
Warren won a second Senate term with 60% of the vote over
Republican Geoff Diehl. She promised during the Senate campaign
not to run for president but launched a presidential exploratory
committee less than two months after the 2018 election.
Warren again proved a prodigious fundraiser during the 2020
presidential campaign by collecting a total of $131 million,
according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. More
than half of those contributions came from contributors giving
less than $200 each — a base of support she could call on in any
future campaign.
Personal Note
Bailey, Warren’s male golden retriever, became a feature of
her 2020 presidential campaign, appearing on campaign stops and
television interviews, as well as official and unofficial Warren
2020 paraphernalia. In a joint interview with her husband,
Warren told CNN in 2019 that getting the dog before the campaign
“probably made no sense at all” but they “can’t imagine life
without him.”
Updated Feb. 3, 2021
To contact the reporter on this story: Kenneth P. Doyle in
Washington at kdoyle@bgov.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bennett
Roth at broth@bgov.com
This article is for subscribers only.
The bank-deregulation bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate threatens the financial system and undermines consumer protections -- and it could get even worse as it moves through the House of Representatives.
The Senate bill claims to solve a problem -- one that actually doesn’t exist. Bank lobbyists declare that broad deregulation is needed to spur growth and lending, but banks of all sizes are already making record profits and consumer and small business lending is robust.