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Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat from Massachusetts who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012. She previously worked as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among several other roles.
Born in Oklahoma City in 1949, Elizabeth Warren became the first member of her family to graduate from college, eventually earning her law degree from Rutgers University. After teaching law at several universities, Warren was selected to lead the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. In 2008, she headed the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Four years later, in November 2012, Warren won election to the U.S. Senate, defeating incumbent Republican Scott Brown.
Early Life
Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on June 22, 1949, Elizabeth Warren was the last of four children—and the only daughter—of Donald and Pauline Herring. Warren spent most of her early life on what she referred to as "the ragged edge of the middle class." Her father worked mostly as a maintenance man, and when he suffered a heart attack that created massive medical bills, Warren's mother brought in extra money by working in the catalog-order department at Sears. Warren also began helping out at the age of 13, by waiting tables at her aunt's Mexican restaurant. But despite efforts to relieve the financial strain on the family, money remained tight; Warren recalled her mother's hesitation to take her to the doctor when she was a child because of a lack of finances.
A brilliant student, Warren became a state debate champion and graduated high school at the age 16. That same year, she entered George Washington University on a full debate scholarship. After two years at the university, Warren left school to marry her high school sweetheart, NASA mathematician Jim Warren. She and Warren moved to Texas, and Elizabeth finished her degree in speech pathology at the University of Houston, becoming the first member of her immediate family to graduate from college.
Elizabeth and her husband moved to New Jersey, where Warren worked in public schools, helping children with disabilities. During this time, Warren gave birth to two children, daughter Amelia and son Alex. The day her first child turned 2, she headed to graduate school to study law at Rutgers University. She earned her J.D. in 1976, and practiced law from her home.
Political Career
By 1978, Warren had divorced her first husband. In the year after the split, she began exploring the economic pressures facing the American middle class, looking specifically at a 1978 law passed by Congress that made it easier for companies and individuals to declare bankruptcy. Warren decided to investigate the reasons why Americans were ending up in bankruptcy court, and discovered that most of the financial victims were from middle-class families who had lost jobs, experienced financial hardship from a divorce or suffered illnesses that decimated their savings. From then on, Warren would focus her research on bankruptcy and commercial law—specifically on how it affected financially distressed companies, women, the elderly and the working poor.
In the decade that followed, moved around the country with her second husband—Harvard law professor, Bruce Mann, whom she married in 1980—teaching law at the University of Houston, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. The couple finally settled at Harvard in 1995. That same year, Warren was asked to advise the new National Bankruptcy Review Commission. During Warren's time as chief adviser, she testified against Congressional efforts to limit consumers' ability to file for bankruptcy. Despite her best efforts, the related bill passed in 2005. It was considered a victory for the business lobby and a defeat for Warren.
In November 2008, Warren was tapped by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was created to monitor the $700 billion bank bailout effort known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Warren headed investigations, conducted televised public hearings, led interviews of government officials and submitted monthly reports demanding accountability from banks. For her efforts, the Boston Globe named Warren "Bostonian of the Year" in 2009.
On September 17, 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Elizabeth Warren Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In her roles, she helped design the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. The main goal of the CFPB was to police credit lenders and prevent consumers from unwittingly signing up for risky loans. However, due largely to Republican opposition, Warren was not chosen to head the agency, and she stepped down from the post in August 2011.
Elected to U.S. Senate
On September 14, 2011, Elizabeth Warren officially announced her candidacy for Massachusetts Senate, pitting herself against Republican incumbent Scott Brown. Around this time, a speech Warren delivered went viral on YouTube, endearing Warren to populist supporters. In the clip, filmed in an informal living room meet-and-greet, the Harvard law professor explained how everyone benefits from roads, public safety and the public education system in the United States, which are paid for by taxes. "You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea—God bless!" she said. "Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." The viral video was credited with giving Warren a bump up in the polls.
But Warren's campaign ran into some trouble in early 2012, when she found herself in a media maelstrom over her Native American ancestry claims. Reporters for the Boston Herald could not find any proof of her Cherokee heritage, and a Cherokee genealogist also challenged Warren's assertion. To try to quell the controversy, Warren released a statement to Boston's WBZ-TV. "Growing up, my mother and grandparents often talked about our family's Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation—what kid would?" Warren further explained that "I never sought nor gained personal benefit in school or job applications based on my heritage."
Despite this controversy, in June 2012, Warren clinched the Democratic nomination in the Senate race, facing incumbent Republican opponent, Senator Scott Brown. The candidates were involved in a tight race. A poll released in September 2012 by the Public Policy Polling showed that Brown had a five-point lead over Warren. However, later that month, Warren earned national exposure as one of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, gaining the favor of many critics as well as a slight lead in the polls. At the convention, she heavily discussed the need for economic and government reforms. "America's middle class is getting hammered, and Washington is rigged to work for the big guy," Warren told ABC News.
Warren won the election in November 2012, defeating Brown by 54%-46% and earning her first term in the U.S. Senate, making her the first woman ever elected to the post for Massachusetts. On her website, Warren told her constituents: "I won't just be your senator, I will also be your champion."
First Term
The month after her election, Warren was selected for a seat on the Senate Banking Committee, which was charged with implementing the Dodd-Frank legislation that she had helped design. After being sworn in to her Senate post in January 2013, Warren set straight to work with the committee, leading its inquiries into banking regulations, and in May she introduced her first bill, the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, which proposed that students should receive the same interest rates on their federal loans as banks do on theirs. Warren also holds seats on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and the Special Committee on Aging.
In 2014, Warren was chosen to fill the newly created position of Strategic Advisor of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, tasked with reshaping the party's direction and priorities. The appointment, along with the encouragement of various Democratic groups, led to speculation that she was being groomed for a presidential bid in the 2016 elections, but Warren ultimately announced that she would not run.
Choosing her work in the Senate over a bid for the White House, Warren has sponsored many pieces of legislation. She championed financial transparency in government legal cases in the Truth in Settlements Act of 2015, which passed the Senate.
In 2016, Warren made headlines for her candid financial advice. She recommended that everyone have an emergency savings fund. Warren told Elle magazine that "I got married when I was 19, and my mother-in-law took me aside and said, 'You always need walking-out-the-door money.'" She took that suggestion to heart, and it was the funds that she had put aside that helped her when she and her husband divorced roughly a decade later.
Warren has also been outspoken about the need to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court created by the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016. Some Republicans have opposed President Barack Obama naming a replacement, claiming the spot shouldn't be filled until after the 2016 elections. Warren took to Twitter to point out how flawed she thought their thinking was on the issue, tweeting "I can’t find a clause in the Constitution that says '…except when there’s a year left in the term of a Democratic President.'"
In early June 2016, Warren endorsed presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Later that month, Warren hit the campaign trail with Clinton, making their first joint appearance at an event in Cincinnati, Ohio. "I'm here today, because I'm with her, yes her," Warren told the crowd, referring to Clinton's campaign slogan. Warren also went on the attack in her critiques of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. "When Donald says he'll make America great, he means greater for rich guys just like Donald Trump," she said. "That's who Donald Trump is . . .And you have to watch out for him, because he'll crush you into the dirt."
