Elizabeth Warren's Secret

[groovedaddy]

It's been well-documented that the 113th Congress specializes in getting nothing consequential done. While the nation's supply of named post offices is apparently well-stocked, anything more critical has generally stalled out, with little hope to break the gridlock.

So let's say you're a high-profile freshman senator walking into this den of inertia, and you want to make your large following proud and advance your agenda, but you're in no position to do that legislatively? How do you, Elizabeth Warren, find your way through this minefield, and even chalk up successes?

"It's all about learning to use the new tools," Warren told Salon in an interview this week. "In the Senate, there are more tools in the toolbox than are obvious." Warren, now the senior senator from Massachusetts (Ed Markey, with a 37-year congressional career, is the junior member), has employed those more unconventional tools effectively, doing her part to both change the conversation around the financial industry inside and outside Washington, and change the sharpness of the regulatory response to financial misdeeds.

Warren sits on the Senate Banking Committee, which has marked up all of two bills so far this year (she played a role in both, passing an amendment to a national insurance licensing bill and working closely with the committee leadership on reforming the Federal Housing Administration). But she has really shone in oversight hearings, where she has gained a reputation for offering uncomfortable questions to regulatory officials about their lack of prosecuting criminal activity on Wall Street. "Too big to fail has become too big for trial," she said at a hearing in February. "How big do the biggest banks have to get before we consider breaking them up?" she asked Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in May. And she's used the bully pulpit outside the hearing room, too, schooling CNBC anchors so badly on the history of financial regulation that the network forced the clip to be removed from YouTube.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/19133-elizabeth-warrens-secret

[GoneFishin]

1. And this is what other democrats should be doing, instead of blaming Repugs and feigning impotence.

That is, of course, if they even actually want to pass any regulations to reign in the pigs at the trough.

[Scuba]

2. Why is she so alone?

[Hydra]

3. Status Quo is very profitable to some people

It's also killing the rest of us, but what do they care?

That said, Senator Warren is incredibly resourceful and cagey. They gave her TARP oversight and no power with it, and she went to people like John Stewart and got the message out- the banks were running the show. I daresay it worked. She may not have been able to stop the gravy train(can anyone?) but she raised awareness made the issue public and acceptable to debate.

She uses whatever she has, because she's there to do the work. That's what I think is missing in the DiFi's and Repubs- they are there to do the work of the Corps, not the people.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. The policy of the United States since the Cold War has been to promote Capitalism...

As such, they get their advice on the Law from Wall Street who is more than happy to have their corporate lawyers draw up the laws that will make the Capitalists happy.

[DrewFlorida]

4. Senator Warren is among my favorite politicians, I love her outspoken attack...

of the corporate machine.