Elizabeth Warren

Senator from Massachusetts
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Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race on March 5, 2020. This page is no longer being updated.
Warren is campaigning on the promise she will push sweeping changes that address economic inequality and root out corruption. The former Harvard law professor was a prominent voice for stricter oversight following the 2008 financial crisis before being elected to the US Senate in 2012.
University of Houston B.S., 1970; Rutgers University, J.D., 1976
June 22, 1949
Bruce Mann; divorced from Jim Warren
Methodist
Amelia, Alexander (with Jim Warren)
Professor, Harvard Law School, 1995-2012;
Visiting professor, Harvard Law School, 1992-1993;
Law professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1987-1995;
Professor of law, University of Texas Law School in Austin, 1983-1987;
Assistant and later associate professor at the University of Houston Law Center, 1978-1983;
Law lecturer at Rutgers School of Law, 1977-1978;
Speech pathologist at a New Jersey elementary school, early 1970s

WARREN IN THE NEWS

Jon Donenberg, top Elizabeth Warren aide, to join Biden's National Economic Council
Updated 10:30 AM ET, Mon Oct 23, 2023
Jon Donenberg -- a key architect of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's signature policy initiatives including her plan to cancel student loan debt -- will join President Joe Biden's National Economic Council as a deputy director, sources told CNN. Donenberg is poised to enter the top ranks of Biden's economic team one year ahead of the 2024 election, as the administration is pushing to sell its record on the country's post-pandemic economic turnaround and boost the public's grim economic outlook. The move also comes as the White House has been focused on a suite of executive actions aimed at cutting costs for lower-income and middle-class Americans, such as cracking down on so-called "junk fees" and finding ways to cancel student loan debt after the Supreme Court struck down Biden's initial plan. Currently Warren's chief of staff, Donenberg is set to start at the NEC early next month. He replaces Bharat Ramamurti, who left the administration earlier this year, and is expected to take over key issues that made up Ramamurti's portfolio including student debt relief, financial regulations, economic competition and technology policy, sources said. "What he's always brought to the policy-making process is both very data-driven but also very much thinking about how we can create an economy that works with everyone," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who has known Donenberg for nearly two decades, told CNN in an interview. Adeyemo said he expects Donenberg to bring a "degree of creativity" to the job -- much needed, he said, as the administration now works to implement some of the hallmark pieces of legislation that Biden signed into law in his first term, such as a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and a sweeping climate, health care and tax bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act. The administration is also focused on continuing to cancel student loan debt after it suffered a disappointing setback earlier this year when the Supreme Court struck down Biden's signature loan forgiveness program. Donenberg has worked for Warren since her first Senate campaign in Massachusetts in 2012 and is known to be among the senator's closest confidantes. A Capitol Hill veteran, he also previously worked for former Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Donenberg joins a sizable contingent of Warren alums and mentees who have taken on powerful economic policy-making roles in the Biden administration so far. That group includes Adeyemo, who worked with Warren to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Ramamurti, who was a policy aide in Warren's 2020 campaign; and Rohit Chopra, the current director of the CFPB. "Jon is a superstar -- and one of the nation's foremost experts on the fight for an economy that works not just for some of our families, but for all of them," Warren said in a statement to CNN. "His unique combination of technical, legal, and economic skills and judgment will make him an invaluable asset to the president." In an interview with CNN in 2019, Donenberg described Warren's career as having been driven by the search for an answer to one question: "What is going wrong with America's middle-class families?" "Why are people working harder than they've ever worked before and not seeing raises and seeing their expenses go up? Why is their debt increasing? Why do they feel like opportunity for their kids is slipping away?" Donenberg said at the time. Answers to some of those very questions may prove to be central to what ultimately shapes up to be Biden's economic legacy. In recent months, Biden's top advisers have expressed optimism about several major economic trends -- key among them, slowing inflation and a robust jobs growth. But public sentiment has yet to catch up, with polling continuing to show stubborn pessimism about the economy despite a string of positive economic news. Advisers acknowledge that more time is needed for Americans to move past the trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic and historic-high inflation. "Jon brings a breadth of experience and a steadfast commitment to building an economy from the bottom up and middle out," said NEC Director Lael Brainard. "His previous work on competition, consumer protection, and financial regulation makes him well equipped for this role."
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STANCES ON THE ISSUES

climate crisis
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A backer of the Green New Deal, the broad plan to address renewable-energy infrastructure and climate change proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Warren has set out one of the most detailed proposals for making it happen. In June 2019, she introduced a suite of industrial proposals with names like the “Green Apollo Program” and “Green Marshall Plan.” Her Green Industrial Mobilization is the most ambitious – and expensive, with a $1.5 trillion price tag over 10 years – for spending on “American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy products for federal, state, and local use, and for export.” The “Green Apollo” plan would invest in scientific innovation and the “Green Marshall Plan” would facilitate the sales of new green technologies to foreign markets. In September 2019, Warren announced she would adopt the climate change proposals championed by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who bowed out of his climate change-focused candidacy in August 2019. That includes a 10-year plan for moving to 100% clean energy and emissions-free vehicles, as well as zero-carbon pollution from all new commercial and residential buildings by 2028. Warren says achieving those goals would take another $1 trillion in investment on top of her existing proposals, which she says would be covered by reversing the 2017 Republican tax cuts. Warren said in October 2019 that, if elected president, she would mandate all federal agencies to consider climate impacts in their permitting and rulemaking processes. When tribal nations are involved, Warren wrote in a Medium post, projects would not proceed unless “developers have obtained the free, prior and informed consent of the tribal governments concerned.” She said a Warren administration would aggressively pursue cases of environmental discrimination, and would fully fund the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s environmental health programs. Warren told The Washington Post she would recommit the US to the Paris climate accord, a landmark 2015 deal on global warming targets that Trump has pledged to abandon. More on Warren’s climate crisis policy
economy
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Warren says she’s a capitalist but wants regulation. “I believe in markets,” she said in a March 2019 CNN town hall, following up with a focus on rules and regulation. “Market without rules is theft.” The senator has released a tax plan that would impose a 2% tax on households with net worths of more than $50 million and an additional 1% levy on wealth above $1 billion. This tax would cover, according to Warren, a universal child care program she announced in February 2019. Warren has staked out her claim as an opposition leader against what she sees as big business overreach. Also in February 2019, she criticized Amazon for “walk[ing] away from billions in taxpayer bribes, all because some elected officials in New York aren’t sucking up to them enough. How long will we allow giant corporations to hold our democracy hostage?” She was opposed to the recent deregulation efforts around banks. Warren is calling for the breakup of companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon and advocated legislation that would make Amazon Marketplace and Google search into utilities. In July 2019, Warren released a plan aimed at Wall Street and private equity that would reinstate a modern Glass-Steagall Act, which would wall off commercial banks from investment banks, place new restrictions on the private equity industry and propose legislative action to more closely tie bank executives’ pay to their companies’ performance. She also released a set of trade policy changes that would seek to defend American jobs by negotiating to raise global labor and environmental standards. The senator wrote that she would not strike any trade deals unless partner countries meet a series of ambitious preconditions regarding human rights, religious freedom, and labor and environmental practices, among other issues. She said she would renegotiate existing trade agreements to ensure other countries meet the higher standards, and she pledged to push for a new “non-sustainable economy” designation to give her the ability to penalize countries with poor labor and environmental practices. Warren said in October 2019 that she would extend labor rights to all workers, protect pensions and strengthen workers’ rights to organize, bargain collectively and strike. More on Warren’s economic policy
education
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Warren has released a plan to forgive up to $50,000 in student debt for tens of millions of Americans. The amount of relief would be tied to income, with those households making $250,000 or more shut out of the program. Households earning less than $250,000 would be eligible for relief on a sliding scale, with those reporting less than $100,000 a year eligible for the maximum. Warren unveiled the proposal as part of a larger program that would supercharge federal spending on higher education, including eliminating tuition and fees for college students at two- and four-year public institutions. It would also ask states to pay a share of the costs. Warren would expand grants for low-income and minority students to help with costs like housing, food, books and child care. Her campaign has priced the plan at $1.25 trillion over 10 years and says it would be paid for by her wealth tax. The plan would also establish a $50 billion fund for historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions. More on Warren’s education policy
gun violence
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During the first Democratic debate, Warren called gun violence “a national health emergency” that should be treated like a “virus that’s killing our children” – and called for robust new restrictions and new investment in research. “We can do the universal background checks, we can ban the weapons of war,” Warren added, “but we can also double down on the research and find out what really works.” Though her campaign has not yet released a gun control plan, Warren has been active on the issue as a senator. In February 2018, less than two weeks after the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, she sent letters to nine major gun company shareholders, asking that they use their influence to pressure the industry to take steps to reduce gun violence. She supports bans on so-called assault weapons and legislation prohibiting high-capacity magazines, and has voted to expand background checks for gun buyers.
healthcare
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Warren has endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill, which would create a national government-run health care program and essentially eliminate the private insurance industry. In a plan released in November 2019, Warren said she would implement Medicare for All in two phases that would be complete by the end of her first term. Warren proposed a plan in April 2019 to drive down the maternal mortality rate among African American women. Warren has also co-sponsored legislation in the Senate aimed at lowering the price of prescription drugs that includes allowing the federal government to manufacture generic medications if their prices spike. More on Warren’s health care policy
immigration
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Warren unveiled a plan in July 2019 to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, pledging to reverse a series of Trump administration policies and authorize her Justice Department to review allegations of abuse against detained migrants. The proposal would decriminalize crossing the border into the United States without authorization, a step first championed by former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, and separate law enforcement from immigration enforcement. If elected, Warren said, she would first seek to pursue her agenda through legislation, but “move forward with executive action if Congress refuses to act.” Warren also said she supports legislation that would provide a path to legal status and citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Her plan would end privately contracted detention facilities and she promises that she would “issue guidance ensuring that detention is only used where it is actually necessary because an individual poses a flight or safety risk.” Warren backs expanding legal immigration, raising the refugee cap and making “it easier for those eligible for citizenship to naturalize.” She would reduce “the family reunification backlog” and provide “a fair and achievable pathway to citizenship.” More on Warren’s immigration policy

LATEST POLITICAL NEWS

The latest on the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse
Updated 9:43 AM ET, Fri Mar 29, 2024
A massive effort to clean up after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is underway, and crews working to clear the steel frame of the bridge and the 984-foot cargo ship that felled it face "an incredibly complex job," Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday. The clean-up efforts are is essential to reopening the Port of Baltimore and recovering the remains that may lie under the wreckage, Moore said, adding that “We have a very long road ahead of us.” How long will it take? Demolition workers may be able to clear a channel large enough for ships to pass through as soon as a month after the required equipment arrives on scene, according to an expert in the field familiar with ongoing discussions. The expert, who spoke to CNN on condition that his name not be used, said it will likely take longer than that to remove all the debris, but clearing the 1,200-foot area between the two pillars that supported the bridge’s main span will be enough to reopen the port to traffic. As salvage efforts are underway, the National Transportation Safety Board has been gathering evidence at the scene of the Baltimore bridge crash, interviewing witnesses and analyzing the ship’s data recordings. Two pilots who were tasked with guiding the ship out of port were expected to be interviewed by authorities Thursday. The vessel’s captain, his mate, the chief engineer and another engineer have already spoken to investigators, said NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy. Investigators have used audio and data from the 213-million-pound ship’s voyage data recorder to extract clues as to what happened in the moments leading up to the collision. Within a minute, police officers on both ends of the bridge were ordered to stop traffic crossing the bridge, said Marcel Muise, the NTSB investigator in charge of the collapse inquiry. Officials have credited this swift action for saving lives. During their first full day at the scene Wednesday, investigators saw the “utter devastation” of the mangled bridge – pieces of which are still draped over the ship’s bow, Homendy said. The Dali, a Singaporean-flagged container vessel, had 23 people on board – 21 crew members and two pilots. Of the crew members, 20 are Indian nationals who are “in good shape” following the crash, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Thursday. Only one member was slightly injured and required some stitches, said spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. All crew members were still onboard the cargo ship as of Thursday, said an Indian Ministry of External Affairs senior official familiar with the matter. Officials working to remove the collapsed Key Bridge from the channel are conducting a full assessment of all pieces of debris before they can lift them out of the water, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath. This assessment is critical in figuring out how to cut the bridge into the right size pieces so cranes can lift them out, he said. “We are doing those assessments right now with underwater surveys, with engineering teams back in unified command,” Gilreath said, adding that the assessment is in coordination with several other partners, including the US Army Corp of Engineers. “That is our number one priority is to reopen the Port of Baltimore as fast as we can, and do it safely,” he added. A crane has arrived in Baltimore to help clear the wreckage from the channel following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday. The largest crane in the Eastern Seaboard was expected to arrive Thursday evening to help clear the wreckage, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said, though it wasn’t yet on site as of early Friday. Additionally, three heavy lift vessels should begin arriving Friday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN. Maryland officials are working “full speed” to reopen the vital shipping channel and revive traffic through the port – the largest in the US for autos and light trucks, handling a record 850,000 vehicles last year, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday. Nonetheless, he said, “We have a very long road ahead of us.” Maryland officials are moving at "full speed" to accomplish four main priorities in the days following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday. Here are the directives mandated by Moore: Continue to keep a focus on recovery efforts. Moore said it is "our obligation to bring a sense of closure to these families." Officials said they recovered the bodies of two people on Wednesday, but recovery efforts for the four other workers were paused because of unsafe diving conditions. Open the channel and restart traffic to the port. The governor stressed minimizing economic impacts where possible, saying "the health of the Maryland economy and the national economy depends on it." Take care of all the people who have been affected by the crisis. This means families of the people presumed dead, the workers, first responders — “that means everybody,” Moore said. Rebuilding the Key Bridge. The governor promised to give regular updates on all of these directives but said they will take a long time to accomplish. "This work will not take hours. This work will not take days. This work will not just take weeks. We have a very long road ahead of us," Moore said. Baltimore's mayor said he is still "hopeful" the bodies of the other workers presumed dead will be recovered. Authorities announced on Wednesday they were pausing search and recovery efforts for the four other workers presumed dead because debris made it unsafe for divers to continue. Once this next phase of salvage operations is complete and the debris is cleared, divers will search for more remains. Mayor Brandon Scott said that during the salvage operation, he hopes "we are able to recover those who remain missing and bring them home to their families. The mayor said he directed his administration to work with the governor’s office “on any and every effort that must be taken.” There have been over 2,400 feet of boom deployed to contain any leaks of pollution in the aftermath of the collapse of the Key Bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday. He said he personally did not see any sheen on the water when he went to assess the situation on site. Remember: 56 containers with hazardous materials were found on the vessel. There are 14 containers on the ship were impacted, and they contained items like soap and perfume, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said at the briefing, adding that he did not have information on whether any of those materials went overboard. Air monitors are in place to track any potential threats and they have not picked up any threats so far, Gilreath added.
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