Why Elizabeth Warren Left The GOP

[ProSense]

Why Elizabeth Warren Left The GOP

By Jeff Spross

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told George Stephanopoulos Sunday that she left the Republican Party in the mid-90s because it was tilting the playing field in favor of Wall Street.

Warren has quickly become a populist hero to liberals. Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s The Week, noted something in her background that “might surprise” her supporters: the fact that she has voted Republican in the past, and was a registered Republican in Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1996. Warren said she left the party after that because she felt it was siding more and more with Wall Street:

I was an independent. I was with the GOP for a while because I really thought that it was a party that was principled in its conservative approach to economics and to markets. And I feel like the GOP party just left that. They moved to a party that said, “No, it’s not about a level playing field. It’s now about a field that’s gotten tilted.” And they really stood up for the big financial institutions when the big financial institutions are just hammering middle class American families. I just feel like that’s a party that moved way, way away.

<...>

“Starting in the 80s, the cops were taken off the beat in financial services,” Warren explained. “These guys (the big financial institutions) were allowed to just paint a bullseye on the backs of american families. They loaded up on risk, the crashed the economy, they got bailed out. And what bothers me now is they still strut around Washington, they block regulations that they don’t want, they roll over agencies whenever they can, and they break the law. And they still don’t end up being held accountable for it and going to jail.”

Warren also dinged the Obama White House, saying, “I make no secret of my differences with the administration in how they’ve treated the large financial institutions.” But she noted the Consumer Financial Protection bureau (CFPB) — which was largely Warren’s brainchild — would not exist without Obama’s support. The agency has already begun cracking down on payday lenders and debt collectors, while cataloging and reporting on mortgage service abuses.

Warren credited the agency with already forcing the largest financial institutions to return more than $3 billion they’ve cheated from customer, and she herself has gone after Republicans for filibustering the CFPB’s nominated director unless the agency is restructured to weaken its political independence...prominent Republican senators like David Vitter (LA) former Sen. Jim DeMint have tried to roll back the Dodd-Frank financial regulation laws, or repeal them wholesale. And as Mike Konczal has detailed, both establishment and Tea Party republicans have spent the time since the crisis opposing nearly every new regulation to rein in Wall Street’s risk-taking and every attempt to reinstate the rules lost during the 1990s.

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/27/3431303/warren-left-gop/

New York Financial Regulator Uses Dodd-Frank to Sue Auto Lender
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024877095

Why isn't there more focus on shareholders' say on executive pay?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024877216

CFPB, hard at work
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024877283

[Nye Bevan]

1. So it seems likely that she voted for Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.

Not that I hold that against her. People's views evolve over time. Plenty of people stopped supporting Reaganism well before the mid 1990s, but she came around eventually.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. And Reagan was an FDR Democrat.

Her past is immaterial to me.

[Jamaal510]

11. That's up for debate IMO.

Remember--Reagan did drastically lower top taxes from how they were under Carter, and he raised taxes on the poor during his presidency (in addition to choosing two of the justices responsible for Citizens United). Those policies and actions alone seem antithetical to FDR's economic platform and what an FDR Democrat would do as president.

[Crunchy Frog]

12. I think you misread the meaning of my post.

He was certainly NOT an FDR Democrat during his presidency, or for many years prior. He had at one time BEEN an FDR Democrat, and became the complete opposite by the time he was president.

I was using this to illustrate the fact that people can change, either for the better or for the worse. Sometimes it seems that Democrats are more fixated on purity than Repubs are, as I don't think any of them cared about Ronnies past, while some Dems seem to make a very big deal out of it if somebody at one time used to vote Republican.

I care about where someone is now, not how they were voting 20 years ago.

[cascadiance]

14. And Michele Bachmann campaigned for Jimmy Carter when I voted for John Anderson!

The last time I voted for a "Republican" when she supported a Democrat, though I supported Jerry Brown in the primaries. And today I consider Jimmy Carter to be our best ex-president at this time, and has been so for quite some time now. Jimmy Carter ran as a "born again" candidate to capture the south and people like Bachmann. Yes, like someone said, Reagan at one time was a Republican too.

We all grow over time with newer information and newer ways our party grows and changes. Had Reagan been held hostage to being "an old Democrat", the Republicans would never have had their own "revolution" that put in place much of their crap today. I support fully who Warren is today and the positions she's been taking TODAY! So should all of the other people who believe in traditional Democratic Party values and not corporatist values.

We should call all "Corporatists" and "Centrists" C**Tists!!

Because that confusion is very much representative of reality today where most if not all of those that call themselves either of those labels SHOULD be considered one and the same!

[hfojvt]

2. she was born in 1949

on my brother's birthday no less. That might make him a fan, even though he tilts conservative.

A little slow on the uptake then, if she lived through the Reagan years before she realized that the GOP was tilting the field towards Wall Street.

Ironically enough, the Clinton 1990s was when DEMOCRATS really started tilting the playing field towards Wall Street too.

To quote Dean Baker again http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022085948

"However, it is important that people understand that the Rubin-Clinton team is every bit as much about redistributing money from the rest of us to the very rich as the Republicans."

From Dean Baker http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/26-0

I was born in 1962 and left the GOP in about 1985, perhaps because that was when I entered the job market and did not like what I saw.

Or it could have been all the Vonnegut I was reading in 1986.

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. A lot of people don't start off paying much attention to politics beyond the 'local'.

I was in my thirties before I really did.

And once you do start paying attention, you're generally as quickly disillusioned with most politicians as you were before you start paying attention.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. As much as I like her in some areas, the Republican past is a big problem for me

It means she was an adult of high education who sided with Ronald Reagan and approved of his silence about AIDS and his anti gay venom and his racism which also informed his calloused view about AIDS.
I do like her way with words and her accent makes her sound like my Mom and Aunts, but they were never Republicans because of things like having a brain and the Sermon on the Mount.

[Kablooie]

5. Apparently her focus has always been primarily on economics, not social issues.

Since that is her specialty it would be the issue she would gravitate towards because it's what she understands and might have the most influence on. She admits that once she realized where the party was going and found she couldn't stop it she pulled out.

Any party you support will have issues you disagree with.
Your focus was on the AIDS epidemic which was certainly a hugely important issue but I could forgive her for not letting that be her guiding principle if she felt that she could do the most good by helping develop a positive economic policy within the Republican party. Unfortunately she was not able to do this but her desired goals were certainly honorable.

[Adrahil]

6. I left the GOP in 1992.

My parents were both pretty conservative (although my mom came from Germany and always supported socialized medicine). I was very conservative through high school and even college. In college, though, I had to face my ideas. I was presented with ideas I had never heard of or thought about before. I officially remained "conservative" and voted Republican until one day after graduating from college, I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio (this was in '92). It dawned on me that this guy saying these INSANE things was on MY side.

Within six months, my entire political outlook had changed. My mom said it was because I had been tainted by "Ivory Tower" ideas in college. My Dad, surprisingly just patted me on the back and said "an adult has to make up their own mind what they think is right. So long as you do that, I can't complain." I didn't QUITE make my change to vote for Clinton in '92, but I don't think I've voted for a Republican since.

People can change, and we ought to embrace it, IMO.

[joshcryer]

7. No wonder she is no more liberal than Third Way Udall.

[randome]

9. I wonder if MannyGoldstein knows this.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Crunchy Frog]

13. He probably also knows that Hillary was a Goldwater girl. n/t

[Beacool]

19. Hillary was 17, not 46.

[Cali_Democrat]

17. He's still recovering from the fact Warren just admitted to signing the letter urging Hillary to run

Warren also re-affirmed the fact she won't be running in 2016.

He's probably a bit shell shocked right now.

[JI7]

18. does it matter ?

it's not like he actually supports her .

she is mostly used as a way to attack other democrats.

[JDPriestly]

10. Elizabeth Warren is just the right candidate whether she wants to run or not, and that is

precisely because her experience in moving decisively and consciously away from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party will help move independents and habitual Republicans away to support the Democratic Party.

I do not think that Warren is really liberal on some issues. Clearly she is liberal on women's and minorities' issues. Clearly she is liberal on economic issues -- by today's standards. She is, however, certainly no socialist. She brings an understanding of the struggles of ordinary people to D.C. It is so refreshing.

I would expect Elizabeth Warren to be pragmatic on foreign policy issues and to defer a lot to the career diplomats and military, but I think she would use her sixth sense about people to pick which of the career diplomats and military to rely on. I would not expect huge changes in our foreign policy. I would expect really big changes with regard to our trade policy. I would expect Elizabeth Warren to think a lot more than Obama does about the impact of our trade policy on American families.

It is precisely because I think that Warren could change the political party configuration in the country to one in which Republicans cannot just stubbornly stand in the door to progress and never budget that I support her. Warren understands what ordinary Republicans and Democrats want and need from government.


I've ordered her book, "A Fighting Chance" for myself and for some of my family members. I am looking forward to reading it.

I do not want to see Hillary run. Elizabeth Warren should run. Hillary, unfortunately and not entirely due, in fact maybe not at all to do, with anything she has done, is a divider. It will be harder for Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary than for them to cross over and vote for Warren. That's my sense.

[ProSense]

15. CFPB, hard at work

CFPB, hard at work

By Steve Benen

It doesn’t get enough attention, but I still consider the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) one of the more important breakthroughs for progressive governance in the Obama era. That its work on our behalf tends to happen far from the spotlight somehow makes it more impressive...It was the CFPB that recently announced multi-million dollar fines for four mortgage insurers for “doling out illegal kickbacks to mortgage lenders in exchange for business.” It was the CFPB that cracked down on a lender for allegedly “paying illegal bonuses to employees who steered home buyers toward higher-interest loans.” It was the CFPB that ended 2013 with “a string of enforcement cases … on lending discrimination, mortgage servicing, online lending and credit card products.”

And it’s the CFPB that keeps adding to its to-do list.

Federal regulators are investigating reports that lenders are pressuring thousands of college graduates to immediately repay their full student loan debt when a relative who co-signed the loans dies or files for bankruptcy.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said Tuesday it is probing the phenomenon, which can damage the credit reports of borrowers who are otherwise in good standing.

<...>

Here’s the situation in a nutshell: young people lacking in collateral often receive student loans with a co-signer, usually a parent. It works like any other debt – the lender figures that if the student struggles to keep up on the payments, the co-signer will be obligated to pick up the slack.

<...>

But if the co-signer dies unexpectedly, the lender panics. “We’re sorry for your loss,” the bank says, “but if you could give us all our money immediately, that’d be great.”...doesn’t matter if the young person hasn’t missed a payment and it doesn’t matter if he/she can’t afford to pay the balance.

The CFPB reported it has received more than 2,300 complaints about private student loans over the last six months, many of which concern lenders’ debt collection practices. One theme throughout the complaints was that, in some cases, lenders are collecting on student loans when a co-signor dies but the primary borrower is still alive and paying on time...the CFPB is intervening on consumers’ behalf. The young people are feeling pushed around by lenders, so now they’ll have a government agency doing what they can’t: push back.

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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cfpb-hard-work

[ProSense]

16. Why isn't there more focus on shareholders' say on executive pay?

Adding this here as I wonder why a post about Elizabeth Warren's status as a former Republicans gets more attention.

TCF loses vote on executive pay

Article by: ADAM BELZ

Shareholders of TCF Financial Corp. have repudiated the bank’s pay for its executives, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In a nonbinding vote, 54 percent of the company’s shareholders opposed its pay packages for top executives, including $4.8 million in total 2013 pay for William Cooper, the Wayzata-based company’s chief executive and chairman.

“We respect the vote of our shareholders on this matter,” TCF Financial said in a statement. “Based on the outcome of the nonbinding vote, we intend to meet with many of them and will then move forward with addressing any concerns regarding TCF’s incentive compensation model.”

The chance to say “yea” or “nay” to executive pay was given to shareholders by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2009. The vote is nonbinding, but corporate directors have become wary of the warning shot that can be fired when too many investors vote “no” to their pay packages.

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http://www.startribune.com/business/256774891.html

This is a small financial institution, but it's amazing that these shareholder votes don't get more press coverage. At the very least, more focus would serve to isolate the greed of top executives.

CEO pay at top companies now 331 times that of average worker, 774 times that of minimum-wage worker



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/16/1292207/-CEO-pay-at-top-companies-now-331-times-that-of-average-worker-774-times-that-of-minimum-wage-worker

Look at the jump from 1983 to 1993.

Teamsters Applaud SEC's Navistar Decision Upholding Dodd-Frank
http://teamster.org/content/teamsters-applaud-secs-navistar-decision-upholding-dodd-frank

Robert Reich: The Significance of Citigroup’s Shareholder Revolt
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002579118

Shareholder votes on executive compensation at US firms have been judicious as well as effective, new research finds

Findings bode well for mandatory say-on-pay provisions of financial reform bill

July 21 - When Robert I. Toll stepped down as CEO of luxury-home builder Toll Brothers last month, he could look back over a career replete not only with riches but with his industry's most coveted awards for excellence. But that didn't save him from a 73% pay cut three years ago, from $26 million to $7 million, after owners of one fourth of Toll Brothers' shares withheld their votes to re-elect the head of the firm's compensation committee. At the time, a proxy advisory firm concluded that Mr. Toll's average compensation over the previous three years had been 564% above the median paid to CEOs at peer companies...shareholder "vote-no" campaigns similar to the one at Toll Brothers have turned out to be a highly effective way of bringing stratospheric CEO paychecks closer to earth, according to new research. A study to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association (San Francisco, Aug 1-4) finds that such campaigns resulted on average in a single-year CEO pay drop of about $7.3 million (about 38%) in firms where pay was excessive . Companies that sustained hefty CEO pay reductions during the study's time span (1997-2007) included Yahoo, UnitedHealth, United Natural Foods, Sanmina-Sci, Saks Inc, Sprint, Qwest Communications, Legg Mason, Lennar, KB Home, Constellation Energy, and Apple.

In addition, the study finds that pay-design proposals by institutional investors resulted in average pay reductions of about $2.3 million in companies with excessive CEO pay. Excessive pay is an amount greater than what would be expected on the basis of a number of standard economic determinants, including firm size, return on assets, stock performance, and industry.

The findings would seem to bode well for the increase in shareholder say on pay likely to result from the major financial-reform bill that President Obama signs into law today. The new legislation requires shareholder advisory votes on executive pay at least once every three years (and, subject to the decision of the shareholders, possibly as often as every year) in all companies or categories of companies not specifically exempted by the SEC.

"This study casts doubt on the two most frequent criticisms of increased shareholder say on pay -- either that it will be largely ineffective or that it will lead to radical changes dictated by unions or other special-interest groups," comments Fabrizio Ferri of New York University, who carried out the new research with Yonca Ertimur of Duke University and Volkan Muslu of the University of Texas at Dallas.

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http://aaahq.org/newsroom/shareholdervotes.htm