In2012, Warren defeated incumbent RepublicanScott Brown and became the first female U.S. senator from Massachusetts.[9] She was reelected by a wide margin in2018, defeating Republican nomineeGeoff Diehl.[10] On February 9, 2019, Warren announcedher candidacy in the2020 United States presidential election.[11] She was briefly considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in late 2019, but support for her campaign dwindled. She withdrew from the race on March 5, 2020, afterSuper Tuesday.[12] She was reelected to a third Senate term in2024 against Republican nominee John Deaton.[13][14]
Early life and education
Warren was born Elizabeth Ann Herring inOklahoma City on June 22, 1949.[15][16][17][18] She is the fourth child of Pauline Louise (née Reed, 1912–1995), ahomemaker,[19] and Donald Jones Herring (1911–1997), aU.S. Armyflight instructor duringWorld War II, both of whom were members of the evangelical branch of the Protestant Methodist Church.[20] Warren has described her early family life as teetering "on the ragged edge of themiddle class" and "kind of hanging on at the edges by our fingernails."[21][22] She and her three older brothers were raisedMethodist.[23][24]
Warren lived inNorman, Oklahoma, until she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to Oklahoma City.[22] When she was 12, her father, then a salesman atMontgomery Ward,[22] had a heart attack, which led to many medical bills as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work.[17] After leaving his sales job, he worked as a maintenance man for an apartment building.[25] Eventually, the family's car was repossessed because they failed to makeloan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog-order department atSears.[17] When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt's restaurant.[26][27]
Warren's high school graduation photo
Warren became a star member of the debate team atNorthwest Classen High School and won the state high school debating championship. She also won a debate scholarship toGeorge Washington University (GWU) at the age of 16.[17] She initially aspired to be a teacher, but left GWU after two years in 1968 to marry James Robert "Jim" Warren,[28] whom she had met in high school.[17][26][29]
The Warrens moved toNew Jersey when Jim received a job transfer. She soon became pregnant and decided to stay at home to care for their daughter,Amelia.[17][21][32] After Amelia turned two, Warren enrolled atRutgers Law School.[32] She received herJuris Doctor in 1976 and passed thebar examination shortly thereafter.[29][32] Shortly before graduating, Warren became pregnant with their second child, Alexander.[17][21]
Career
In 1970, after obtaining a degree in speech pathology and audiology, but before enrolling in law school, Warren taught children with disabilities for a year in a public school.[33] During law school, she worked as a summer associate atCadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. After receiving herJuris Doctor and passing thebar examination, Warren offered legal services from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings.[29][32]
In the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Warren taught law at several American universities while researching issues related tobankruptcy and middle-classpersonal finance.[32] She became involved with public work in bankruptcy regulation and consumer protection in the mid-1990s.
Warren's earliest academic work was heavily influenced by thelaw and economics movement, which aimed to applyneoclassical economic theory to the study of law with an emphasis on economic efficiency. One of her articles, published in 1980 in theNotre Dame Law Review, argued thatpublic utilities were over-regulated and that automatic utility rate increases should be instituted.[35] But Warren soon became a proponent of on-the-ground research into how people respond to laws. Her work analyzing court records and interviewing judges, lawyers, and debtors, established her as a rising star in the field of bankruptcy law.[36] According to Warren and economists who follow her work, one of her key insights was that rising bankruptcy rates were caused not by profligateconsumer spending but by middle-class families' attempts to buy homes in good school districts.[37] Warren worked in this field alongside colleaguesTeresa A. Sullivan and Jay Westbrook, and the trio published their research in the bookAs We Forgive Our Debtors in 1989. Warren later recalled that she had begun her research believing that most people filing for bankruptcy were either working the system or had been irresponsible in incurring debts, but that she concluded that such abuse was in fact rare and that the legal framework for bankruptcy was poorly designed, describing the way the research challenged her fundamental beliefs as "worse than disillusionment" and "like being shocked at a deep-down level".[35] In 2004, she published an article in theWashington University Law Review in which she argued that correlating middle-class struggles with over-consumption was a fallacy.[38]
Warren joined theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School as a full professor in 1987 and obtained anendowed chair in 1990, becoming theWilliam A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law. In 1992, she taught for a year atHarvard Law School as theRobert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. In 1995, Warren left Penn to becomeLeo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. In 1996, she became the highest-paid professor at Harvard University who was not an administrator, with a $181,300 salary and total compensation of $291,876, including moving expenses and an allowance in lieu of benefits contributions.[39][31] As of 2011[update], she was Harvard's only tenured law professor who had attended law school at an American public university.[36] Warren was a highly influential law professor. She published in many fields, but her expertise was in bankruptcy andcommercial law. From 2005 to 2009, Warren was among the three most-cited scholars in those fields.[40][41]
Warren began to rise in prominence in 2004 with an appearance on the Dr. Phil show, and published several books includingThe Two-Income Trap.[42][43]
Advisory roles
In 1995, the National Bankruptcy Review Commission's chair, former congressmanMike Synar, asked Warren to advise the commission. Synar had been a debate opponent of Warren's during their school years.[44] She helped draft the commission's report and worked for several years to oppose legislation intended to severely restrict consumers' right to file for bankruptcy. Warren and others opposing the legislation were not successful; in 2005, Congress passed theBankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which curtailed consumers' ability to file for bankruptcy.[26][45]
From 2006 to 2010, Warren was a member of theFDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion.[46] She is a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, an independent organization that advises the U.S. Congress on bankruptcy law,[47] a former vice president of theAmerican Law Institute and a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[48]
Warren stands next to President Barack Obama as he announcesRichard Cordray's nomination as the first director of theCFPB, July 2011.
On November 14, 2008,U.S. Senate majority leaderHarry Reid appointed Warren to chair the five-memberCongressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of theEmergency Economic Stabilization Act.[51] The panel released monthly oversight reports evaluating the government bailout and related programs.[52] During Warren's tenure, these reports covered foreclosure mitigation, consumer and small business lending, commercial real estate,AIG, bank stress tests, the impact of theTroubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on the financial markets, government guarantees, the automotive industry and other topics.[53][54][55]
A close high-school friend toldPolitico in 2019 that in high school Warren was a "diehard conservative" and that she had since done a "180-degree turn and an about-face".[35] One of her colleagues at the University of Texas in Austin said that at university in the early 1980s Warren was "sometimes surprisingly anti-consumer in her attitude".[35]Gary L. Francione, who had been a colleague of hers at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, recalled in 2019 that when he heard her speak at the time she was becoming politically prominent, he "almost fell off [his] chair... She's definitely changed".[35] Warren was registered as aRepublican from 1991 to 1996[1] and voted Republican for many years. "I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets", she has said.[17] But she has also said that in the six presidential elections before 1996 she voted for the Republican nominee only once, in1976, forGerald Ford.[35]
Warren has said that she began to vote Democratic in 1995 because she no longer believed that the Republicans were the party who best supported markets, but she has said she has voted for both parties because she believed neither should dominate.[62] According to Warren, she left the Republican Party because it is no longer "principled in its conservative approach to economics and to markets" and is instead tilting the playing field in favor of large financial institutions and against middle-class American families.[63][64]
On September 14, 2011, Warren declared her intention to run for theDemocratic nomination for the2012 election in Massachusetts for theU.S. Senate. RepublicanScott Brown had won the seat in a2010 special election afterTed Kennedy's death.[65][66] A week later, a video of Warren speaking inAndover wentviral on the Internet.[67] In it, Warren responds to the charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes is "class warfare" by saying that no one grew rich in the U.S. without depending on infrastructure paid for by the rest of society:[68][69]
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ... You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. 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.
Warren ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination and won it on June 2, 2012, at the state Democratic convention with a record 95.77% of the votes of delegates.[71][72][73] She encountered significant opposition from business interests. In August, the political director for theU.S. Chamber of Commerce commented that "no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren".[74] Warren nonetheless raised $39 million for her campaign, more than any other Senate candidate in 2012, and showed, according toThe New York Times, "that it was possible to run against the big banks without Wall Street money and still win".[59]
Warren received a prime-time speaking slot at the2012 Democratic National Convention on September 5, 2012. She positioned herself as a champion of a beleaguered middle class that "has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered". According to Warren, "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged." Warren said Wall Street CEOs "wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs" and that they "still strut around congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them".[75][76][77]
On January 6, 2017, in an email to supporters, Warren announced that she would be running for a second term as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, writing, "The people of Massachusetts didn't send me to Washington to roll over and play dead while Donald Trump and his team of billionaires, bigots, and Wall Street bankers crush the working people of our Commonwealth and this country. ... This is no time to quit."[78]
In the 2018 election, Warren defeated Republican nomineeGeoff Diehl, 60% to 36%.
Warren won a third Senate term,[79] defeating Republican nominee John Deaton, an attorney,[80] 59.6% to 40.4%. This election marked the first time that Warren had lostBristol County while running for the office. Warren underperformedKamala Harris, who won the state by 25 points in the concurrentpresidential election, as well as every county.
Tenure
On November 6, 2012, Warren defeated Brown with 53.7% of the vote. She is the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts,[15] as part ofa sitting U.S. Senate that had 20 women senators in office, which was the most in Senate history at the time, followingthe November 2012 elections. In December 2012, Warren was assigned a seat on theSenate Banking Committee, which oversees the implementation of Dodd–Frank and other regulation of the banking industry.[81] Vice PresidentJoe Biden swore Warren in on January 3, 2013.[82]
At Warren's first Banking Committee hearing in February 2013, she pressed several banking regulators to say when they had last taken a Wall Street bank to trial and said, "I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial'." Videos of Warren's questioning amassed more than one million views in a matter of days.[83] At a March Banking Committee hearing, Warren askedTreasury Department officials why criminal charges were not brought againstHSBC forits money laundering practices. Warren compared money laundering to drug possession, saying: "If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to go to jail ... But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night."[84][85]
In May 2013, Warren sent letters to theJustice Department, theSecurities and Exchange Commission, and theFederal Reserve questioning their decisions that settling would be more fruitful than going to court.[86] Also in May, saying that students should get "the same great deal that banks get", Warren introduced the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, which would allow students to take out government education loans at the same rate that banks pay to borrow from the federal government, 0.75%.[87]Independent senatorBernie Sanders endorsed her bill, saying: "The only thing wrong with this bill is that [she] thought of it and I didn't".[88] By the following year, Warren's attempts to pass any student loan reform were blocked.[89][90]
During the 2014 election cycle, Warren was a top Democratic fundraiser. After the election, Warren was appointed to become the first-ever Strategic Adviser of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, a position created for her. The appointment added to speculation that Warren would run for president in 2016.[91][92][93][94]
Warren's "A minimum-wage job saved my family" speech at theEconomic Policy Institute, November 2015 (3:28)
In early 2015, President Obama urged Congress to approve theTrans-Pacific Partnership, a proposedfree trade agreement between the United States and 11 Asian and South American countries.[95] Warren criticized the TPP, arguing that the dispute resolution mechanism in the agreement and labor protections for American workers therein were insufficient; her objections were in turn criticized by Obama.[96][97]
Saying "despite the progress we've made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy", in July 2015 Warren,John McCain,Maria Cantwell, andAngus King reintroduced the 21st CenturyGlass–Steagall Act, a modern version of the Banking Act of 1933. The legislation was intended to reduce the American taxpayer's risk in the financial system and the likelihood of future financial crises.[98]
In December 2016, Warren gained a seat on theSenate Armed Services Committee, whichThe Boston Globe called "a high-profile perch on one of the chamber's most powerful committees" that would "fuel speculation about a possible 2020 bid for president".[101]
During the debate on SenatorJeff Sessions's nomination forUnited States attorney general in February 2017, Warren quoted a letterCoretta Scott King had written SenatorStrom Thurmond in 1986 when Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship.[102] King wrote, "Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to happen."[102] Senate Republicans voted that by reading the letter from King, Warren had violatedSenate Rule 19, which prohibits impugning another senator's character.[102] This prohibited Warren from further participating in the debate on Sessions's nomination, and Warren instead read King's letter while streaming live online.[103][104] In rebuking Warren, Senate Majority LeaderMitch McConnell said on the Senate floor, "She was warned. She was given an explanation.Nevertheless, she persisted."[104] McConnell's language became a slogan for Warren and others.[104][105]
On October 3, 2017, during Wells Fargo chief executiveTimothy J. Sloan's appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, Warren called on him to resign, saying, "At best you were incompetent, at worst you were complicit."[106]
On July 17, 2019, Warren and RepresentativeAl Lawson introduced legislation that would make low-income college students eligible for benefits under theSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) according to the College Student Hunger Act of 2019.[107]
Warren was at the Capitol to participate in the2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supportersattacked the Capitol. She called it an "attemptedcoup and act of insurrection egged on by a corrupt president to overthrow our democracy", and the perpetrators "domestic terrorists."[109] The day after the attack, Warren joined the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation to call for Trump's immediate removal from office through the invocation of theTwenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or impeachment.[110]
In the run-up to the2016 United States presidential election, supporters put Warren forward as a possible presidential candidate, but she repeatedly said she would not run for president in 2016.[114][115][116][117] In October 2013, she joined the other 15 women Democratic senators in signing a letter that encouragedHillary Clinton to run.[118] There was much speculation about Warren being added to the Democratic ticket as a vice-presidential candidate.[119][120] On June 9, 2016, after theCalifornia Democratic primary, Warren formally endorsed Clinton for president. In response to questions when she endorsed Clinton, Warren said that she believed herself to be ready to be vice president, but she was not being vetted.[121] On July 7,CNN reported that Warren was on a five-personshort list to be Clinton'srunning mate.[121][122] Clinton eventually choseTim Kaine.
Until her June endorsement, Warren was neutral during the Democratic primary but made public statements that she was cheeringBernie Sanders on.[123] In June, Warren endorsed and campaigned for Clinton.[124] She calledDonald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, dishonest, uncaring, and "a loser".[125][126][127]
On February 9, 2019, Warren officially announced her candidacy at a rally inLawrence, Massachusetts, at the site of the 1912Bread and Roses strike.[133] A longtime critic of President Trump, Warren called him a "symptom of a larger problem [that has resulted in] a rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else".[134]
Warren staged her first campaign event in Lawrence to demonstrate the constituency groups she hopes to appeal to, includingworking class families, union members, women, and new immigrants. She called for major changes in government:
It won't be enough to just undo the terrible acts of this administration. We can't afford to just tinker around the edges—a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change. This is the fight of our lives. The fight to build an America where dreams are possible, an America that works for everyone.[11]
Following her candidacy announcement, Warren became known for the number and depth of her policy proposals, including plans to assist family farms by addressing the advantages held by large agricultural conglomerates, plans to reduce student loan debt and offer free tuition at public colleges, a plan to make large corporations pay more in taxes and better regulate large technology companies, several proposals inspired by opposition to President Trump, a plan to utilizeeconomic patriotism, and plans to addressopioid addiction.[135][136] One of her signature plans was awealth tax, dubbed the "Ultra-Millionaire Tax", on fortunes over $50 million.[137] Warren was credited with popularizing the idea of a wealth tax with Americans, leading competitor Bernie Sanders to release a wealth tax plan.[138] "I have a plan for that" began to develop as a catchphrase for Warren's campaign, and her campaign store began selling merchandise displaying the phrase.[139]
After the ninth debate of the 2020 Democratic primaries, on February 19, Warren received considerable media coverage for her scolding of fellow candidateMike Bloomberg. She criticized Bloomberg's non-transparent tax records, recently publicized claims of misogyny and sexism toward women, and history ofredlining poor neighborhoods.[140] Warren then pressed Bloomberg about thenon-disclosure agreements some of female associates are bound by, demanding they be nullified so that the women could come forward and share their experiences.[141]
After several defeats at the polls, including a third-place finish in Massachusetts's Democratic primary, Warren ended her campaign on March 5, 2020.[142]
Polls
In early June 2019, Warren placed second in some polls, withJoe Biden in first place andBernie Sanders in third.[136] In the following weeks her poll numbers steadily increased, and a September Iowa poll placed her in the lead with 22% to Biden's 20%. The Iowa poll also rated the number of voters at least considering voting for each candidate; Warren scored 71% to Biden's 60%. Poll respondents also gave her a higher "enthusiasm" rating, with 32% of her backers extremely enthusiastic to Biden's 22%.[143]
An October 24Quinnipiac poll placed Warren in the lead at 28%, with Biden at 21% and Sanders at 15%. When asked which candidate had the best policy ideas, 30% of respondents named Warren, with Sanders at 20% and Biden 15%. Sanders was most often named as the candidate who "cares most about people like you," with Warren in second place and Biden third. Sanders also placed first at 28% when respondents were asked which candidate was the most honest, followed by Warren and Biden at 15% each.[144]
TheLos Angeles Times reported that of the front-runners in the presidential race, only Sanders and Warren have previously won an election with almost exclusively small online contributions, and that no presidential primary in recent history has had two of the top three candidates refuse to use bundlers or hold private fundraisers with wealthy donors.[145][146]
In January 2019, Warren said that she took no PAC money.[147] In October 2019, Warren announced that her campaign would not accept contributions of more than $200 from executives at banks, large tech companies, private equity firms, or hedge funds, in addition to her previous refusal to accept donations of over $200 from fossil fuel or pharmaceutical executives.[148]
In the third quarter of 2019, Warren's campaign raised $24.6 million, just less than the $25.3 million Sanders's campaign raised and well ahead of Joe Biden, the front-runner in the polls, who raised $15.2 million. Warren's average donation was $26; Sanders's was $18.[149]
In February 2020, Warren began accepting support fromSuper PACs, after failing to convince other Democratic presidential candidates to join her in disavowing them.[150][151]
As of September 2019, Warren had attended 128 town halls. She is known for remaining afterward to talk with audience members and for the large numbers ofselfies she has taken with them.[145] On September 17, over 20,000 people attended a Warren rally at New York City'sWashington Square Park. After her speech long lines formed with people waiting as long as four hours for selfies.[152]
In June 2020,CNN reported that Warren was among the top four vice-presidential choices for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, along with MayorKeisha Lance Bottoms, RepresentativeVal Demings, and SenatorKamala Harris.[154]Kamala Harris was officially announced as Biden's running mate on August 11, 2020. On August 13,The New York Times reported that Warren was one of Biden's four finalists along with Harris,Susan Rice, andGretchen Whitmer.[155]
In late April,CNBC reported that big-money donors were pressuring Biden not to choose Warren, preferring other candidates purportedly on his list, such as Harris, Whitmer, andAmy Klobuchar.[156]
Personal life
Warren and her first husband divorced in 1978,[17][21] and two years later, Warren married law professorBruce H. Mann on July 12, 1980,[157] but kept her first husband's surname.[21][158] Warren has three grandchildren through her daughter Amelia.[159]
On April 23, 2020, Warren announced on Twitter that her eldest brother, Don Reed Herring, had died ofCOVID-19 two days earlier.[160][161] On October 1, 2021, she announced that her brother, John Herring, had died of cancer.[162]
For 2022, she and her husband reported a combined income of $1 million; her salary as U.S. Senator only accounts for a fifth of that sum. As of early 2025,TheStreet.com estimates her net worth at least $8 million.[165]
Warren with a supporter wearing a "Warren has a plan for that" T-shirt. The phrase became aninternet meme during her presidential run.[166]
Warren is widely regarded as aprogressive. In 2012, the British magazineNew Statesman named Warren among the "top 20 U.S. progressives".[167]
Warren supports worker representation on corporations' board of directors, breaking up monopolies, stiffening sentences for white-collar crime, aMedicare for All plan to provide health insurance for all Americans, and a higher minimum wage.[168]
Warren was highly critical of the Trump administration. She expressed concerns over what she says were Trump's conflicts of interest. ThePresidential Conflicts of Interest Act, written by Warren, was first read in the Senate in January 2017.[169][170] Warren was highly critical of Trump's immigration policies. In 2018, she called for abolishingU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).[171]
Warren has criticized U.S. involvement in theSaudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen in support of Yemen's government against theHouthis.[172][173] In January 2019, Warren criticized Trump's decision to withdrawU.S. troops from Syria andAfghanistan. She agreed that U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Syria and Afghanistan but said such withdrawals should be part of a "coordinated" plan formed with U.S. allies.[174]
In April 2019, after reading theMueller report, Warren called on the House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump, saying, "The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack."[175]
After the June 24, 2022,ruling in which the Supreme Court overturnedRoe v. Wade, Warren wrote aNew York Times op-ed requesting that President Biden unblock "critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services".[176]
In 2022, Warren voted to advance legislation to codify same-sex marriage into federal law by voting for theRespect for Marriage Act.[177]
Warren supports a two-state solution to theIsraeli–Palestine conflict. In March 2024, she was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to the Biden administration urging the U.S. to recognize a "nonmilitarized"Palestinian state after the war in Gaza.[179]
Warren has been critical ofconcentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), sometimes calledfactory farms. In 2019, she said she supported a federal moratorium on CAFO construction and expansion,[180] and cosponsored a bill to prohibit the construction of new CAFOs and phase out existing operations by 2040.[181]
Ancestry and Native American claims
According to Warren and her brothers, older family members told them during their childhood that they had someNative American ancestry.[182][183] In 2012, she said that "being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born".[184] In 1984,[185][186] Warren contributed recipes to a Native American cookbook and identified herself asCherokee.[187][188] Warren is not a part of any native tribes and does not hold any tribal citizenship.[189]
During Warren's first Senate race in 2012, her opponent,Scott Brown, speculated that she hadfabricated Native ancestry to gain advantage on the employment market and used Warren's ancestry in several attack ads.[190][191][192] Warren has denied that her alleged heritage gave her any advantages in her schooling or her career.[193] Several colleagues and employers (including Harvard) have said her reported ethnic status played no role in her hiring.[194][189] From 1995 to 2004, her employer, Harvard Law School, listed her as a Native American in its federal affirmative action forms; Warren later said she was unaware of this.[195]
The Washington Post reported that in 1986, Warren identified her race as "American Indian" on aState Bar of Texas write-in form used for statistical information gathering, but added that there was "no indication it was used for professional advancement".[196] A 2018Boston Globe investigation found that her reported ethnicity played no role in her rise in the academic legal profession, and concluded there was "clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools", and that "Warren was viewed as a white woman by the hiring committees at every institution that employed her".[197] In February 2019, Warren apologized for having identified as Native American.[188][198][199]
Throughout his first term in office, PresidentDonald Trump mocked Warren for her assertions of Native American ancestry[200] and pejoratively called her "Pocahontas".[201] At a July 2018 Montana rally, he promised that if he debated Warren, he would pay $1 million to her favorite charity if she took aDNA test and "it shows you're an Indian".[202] In October 2018, Warren released an analysis of a DNA test by geneticistCarlos D. Bustamante that found her ancestry to be mostly European but "strongly support[ed] the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor", likely "in the range of 6 to 10 generations ago".[203] According toThe Boston Globe, this puts Warren somewhere between 1/64 and 1/1024 (0.09% to 1.5%) Native American.[189] Other geneticists, while not disputing the test's validity, found the underlying science "flawed" due to the lack ofNative Americans in the United States in the database.[204] GeneticistsKrystal Tsosie and Matthew Anderson called the interpretation of the test "problematic", citing, among other reasons, "Warren's motives, and the genetic variants informing the comparison". They added: "because Bustamante used Indigenous individuals from Central and South America as a reference group to compare Warren's DNA, we believe he should have stated only that Warren potentially had an 'Indigenous' ancestor 6-10 generations ago, not conclusively a 'Native American' one. The distinction might seem hypercritical to most, but to the sovereign tribal nations of the United States it's an important one."[205]
After publicizing Bustamante's interpretation of the test, Warren asked Trump to donate the money to theNational Indigenous Women's Resource Center. Trump responded: "I didn't say that. I think you better read it again".[202][206][207] TheCherokee Nation criticized Warren, saying, "Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong."[189][208] According toPolitico, "Warren's past claims of American Indian ancestry garnered fierce criticism from both sides of the aisle", with "tribal leaders calling out Warren for claiming a heritage she did not culturally belong to."[201]
During a January 2019 public appearance inSioux City, Iowa, Warren was asked by an attendee, "Why did you undergo the DNA testing and give Donald more fodder to be a bully?" She responded in part, "I am not aperson of color; I am not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes, and only tribes, determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference."[209] She later privately contacted leadership of the Cherokee Nation to apologize "for furthering confusion over issues of tribal sovereignty and citizenship and for any harm her announcement caused". Cherokee Nation executive director of communications Julie Hubbard said that Warren understands "that being a Cherokee Nation tribal citizen is rooted in centuries of culture and laws not through DNA tests".[210] Warren apologized again in August 2019 before a Native American Forum in Iowa.[211][212]
In February 2019, Warren received a standing ovation during a surprise visit to a Native American conference, where she was introduced by freshman RepresentativeDeb Haaland (D-NM), one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress.[213][214] Haaland endorsed Warren for president in July 2019, calling her "a great partner forIndian Country".[215]
In 2018, theWomen's History Month theme in the United States was "Nevertheless, She Persisted: Honoring Women Who Fight All Forms of Discrimination Against Women", referring to McConnell's remark about Warren.[228]
Warren has been described as a national "liberal standard-bearer"[240] as well as a "standard-bearer" for progressivism.[241] In his 2024 bookThe Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics, Joshua Green cites Warren as a major figure in shaping the Democratic Party's embrace of more leftward politics in the dozen years after the Great Recession. Green considers Warren to have demonstrated "a new way" approach in national politics, whereby politicians engage in "big, loud, messy fights that offered moral clarity and galvanized public sentiment behind a position." He credited this approach for enabling Warren to "take on her own party".[242] Warren herself had previously boasted about being a "thorn" to the Obama administration, taking pride in her willingness to be combative with the administration's major economic officials and occasionally voice public disagreement with Obama's positions.[243]
Fellow journalistBrian Stelter concurred with Green's analysis that Warren (as well as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez) had "helped lead an economic 'backlash' to the2008 financial crisis that pulled the [Democratic] party leftward."[244] After the 2016 election of Donald Trump placed the national Democratic Party in a political wilderness as both the opposition to the president and the minority party in both chambers of the Congress, many commenters saw Warren as one of the de facto leading figures in a party that lacked a clear singular post-Obama leader.[245]
Columnists such as Perry Bacon Jr. ofThe Washington Post have written that ideas Warren promoted during her presidential campaign have had some influence on the Biden administration's agenda.[246] In February 2021, Jeff Bridgood observed that the administration appeared more receptive to Warren's input than the Obama administration had been, reflecting how the party had become more in line with her political philosophy than it had been when she first rose to political prominence.[243] During the Biden administration, Warren has continued to be a prominent voice within her party.[247]
Protégés
Warren has mentored several people who went on to hold notable political office. Former U.S. RepresentativeKatie Porter, who was a law student of Warren, is considered one of her protégées.[248] Porter co-chaired Warren's presidential campaign.[249] Another of Warren's political protégées isMichelle Wu (mayor of Boston), who was a law student of hers and worked on her 2012 Senate campaign before running for Boston City Council herself in 2013.[250]Suffolk County SheriffSteven W. Tompkins also got his start in politics working on Warren's 2012 campaign.[251] During his law school studies, former U.S. RepresentativeJoe Kennedy III considered Warren a mentor.[252]Boston City Council presidentRuthzee Louijeune has also been described as a Warren protégée[253] and served as senior counsel to Warren's presidential campaign before running for city council.[254]
Influence on appointments in Democratic presidential administrations
Warren strongly believes that "personnel is policy": that the policy of a presidency is shaped by who a president appoints to their administration.[243][247] She has influenced President Obama, 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and President Biden on the matter of staffing presidential administrations.[243]
Pressuring of Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election
Warren discreetly engaged in an effort to shape the administration Hillary Clinton would lead if she won the 2016 election. In his 2024 book, Stern noted that after Warren (bullish on her own 2016 prospects of winning a presidential election) had declined grassroots efforts to draft her into a candidacy. Recognizing that Clinton stood of becoming the party's nominee, Warren quietly worked to influence how she might staff an administration.[242]
In 2019, Alex Thompson reported inPolitico on Warren's efforts ahead of the 2016 election to pressure Clinton on potential appointees. Thompson described Warren's theory on political power as "combining tough, often hyperbolic rhetoric to create leverage with quieter, hands-on, person-to-person outreach." He reported that, beginning in December 2014, Warren had discreetly "pressed Clinton to commit to not appointing Wall Street-friendly people to her administration, as Warren felt Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had done." He described this effort as a
Two-year campaign by Warren, her staff and outside allies to push, prod and shape the would-be Clinton administration—an effort that also included an informal blacklist of Clinton allies that Warren and outside partners would resist if nominated for jobs in the Clinton administration.[255]
Thompson reported that Warren had also "sent Clinton a list of people she wanted the campaign team to consult on economic policy in order to broaden their horizons", all of whom had been "critical of the Obama administration's response to the2008 financial crisis, as Warren had." Thompson reported that Clinton and her political advisors gave great deference to Warren's advice, both out of concern that Warren might otherwise challenge Clinton in the primary, but also due to "Warren’s credibility among progressives and her willingness to use herbully pulpit to condemn members of her own party."[255]
Biden administration
Warren has had notable success in lobbying President Biden on certain appointments in his administration.[256] A number of Warren's acolytes have served in the Biden administration,[256][257] includingBharat Ramamurti (a former economic policy advisor to Warren)[257] andSasha Baker (a former senate and campaign policy advisor to Warren on national security).[256][258] Within the first three weeks of his presidency, Biden had already named four of Warren's campaign and Senate staffers to positions in his administration, among other Warren allies and protégés.[243] In March 2021, Kara Voght ofMother Jones wrote, "Warren has been a private but constant voice to the Biden administration on personnel decisions." That same month, Zachary Warmbrodt ofPolitico wrote:
President Joe Biden is enlisting a small army of [Warren's] former aides and allies to run his government. Warren's expanding network in the upper echelons of the administration includes protégés who helped execute her aggressive oversight of big banks and other corporations as well as friends who share her views of the risks looming on Wall Street. But it goes beyond finance, covering pivotal posts at the Department of Education and even the National Security Council. The Warren recruits mark a victory for the progressive movement, which has supported her yearslong "personnel is policy" campaign to chip away at the dominance of corporate insiders in setting policy for Democrats.[256]
Books and other works
In 2004, Warren and her daughter,Amelia Tyagi, wroteThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. In the book they state that at that time, a fully employed worker earned less inflation-adjusted income than a fully employed worker had 30 years earlier. Although families spent less at that time on clothing, appliances, and other forms of consumption, the costs of core expenses such asmortgages,health care,transportation, andchild care had increased dramatically. According to the authors, the result was that even families with two income earners were no longer able to save and incurred ever greater debt.[259]
In an article inThe New York Times,Jeff Madrick said of the book:
The authors find that it is not the free-spending young or the incapacitated elderly who are declaring bankruptcy so much as families with children ... their main thesis is undeniable. Typical families often cannot afford the high-quality education, health care, and neighborhoods required to be middle class today. More clearly than anyone else, I think, Ms. Warren and Ms. Tyagi have shown how little attention the nation and our government have paid to the way Americans really live.[260]
In 2005, Warren andDavid Himmelstein published a study onbankruptcy andmedical bills[261] that found that half of all families filing for bankruptcy did so in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. They say that three-quarters of such families hadmedical insurance.[262] The study was widely cited inpolicy debates, but some have challenged its methods and offered alternative interpretations of the data, suggesting that only 17% of bankruptcies are directly attributable to medical expenses.[263]
Metropolitan Books published Warren's bookA Fighting Chance in April 2014.[264] According to aBoston Globe review, "the book's title refers to a time she says is now gone, when even families of modest means who worked hard and played by the rules had at a fair shot at the American dream."[265]
In April 2017, Warren published her 11th book,[4]This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class, in which she explores the plight of the American middle class and argues that the federal government needs to do more to help working families with stronger social programs and increased investment in education.[266]
Publications
Selected articles
Warren, Elizabeth (1987). "Bankruptcy Policy".The University of Chicago Law Review.54 (3):775–814.doi:10.2307/1599826.JSTOR1599826.
Casenote Legal Briefs: Commercial Law. Aspen Publishers. 2006.ISBN978-0-7355-5827-4. (withLynn M. LoPucki, Daniel Keating, Ronald Mann, and Normal Goldenberg)
^abcWarren, Elizabeth (2008)."Curriculum Vitae"(PDF). Harvard Law School.Archived(PDF) from the original on April 18, 2016. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2019.
Resignation announced in"Meeting Minutes: November 16, 2010"(PDF).FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion.Archived(PDF) from the original on April 17, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2019.
^Berman, Russell (November 13, 2014)."Elevating Elizabeth Warren".The Atlantic.Archived from the original on December 7, 2014. RetrievedDecember 4, 2014.
^Killough, Ashley; Liptak, Kevin (May 8, 2012)."Brown continues offense on Warren over Native American claims".CNN. Archived fromthe original on October 8, 2019. RetrievedSeptember 24, 2019.The New England Historic Genealogical Society provided CNN with initial research last week, showing several members of Warren's maternal family claiming Cherokee heritage. The Native American link extends to Warren's great-great-great grandmother O.C. Sarah Smith, who is said to be described as Cherokee in an 1894 marriage license application.
^Madison, Lucy (May 3, 2012)."Warren explains minority listing, talks of grandfather's 'high cheekbones'".CBS News.Archived from the original on October 18, 2018. RetrievedOctober 18, 2018.And my Aunt Bea has walked by that picture at least a 1,000 times – remarked that he – that her father, my Papaw – had high cheek bones – 'like all of the Indians do'. Because that's how she saw it and she said 'and your mother got those same great cheek bones and I didn't'. She thought that was the bad deal she had gotten in life. Being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born
^Seelye, Katharine Q.; Goodnough, Abby (April 30, 2012)."Candidate for Senate Defends Past Hiring".The New York Times.eISSN1553-8095.ISSN0362-4331.OCLC1645522.Archived from the original on February 23, 2015. RetrievedFebruary 23, 2015.officials involved in her hiring at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas and the University of Houston Law Center all said that she was hired because she was an outstanding teacher, and that her stated ethnicity was either not discussed or not a factor
^Tarlo, Shira (December 7, 2018)."Elizabeth Warren receives standing ovation at surprise visit to Native American conference: report".Salon.Archived from the original on February 22, 2019. RetrievedFebruary 23, 2019.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) received a standing ovation when she made a surprise appearance Tuesday at a Native American conference ... Warren apologized to the Cherokee Nation earlier this month for releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove it. It was most recently revealed that Warren listed her race as "American Indian" when she filled out form for the Texas state bar in 1986.
^Lee, MJ (February 12, 2019)."Elizabeth Warren makes unannounced appearance at Native American luncheon in Washington".CNN.Archived from the original on February 25, 2019. RetrievedFebruary 23, 2019.The Washington Post reported that Warren had listed her race as 'American Indian' on a State Bar of Texas registration card in 1986. It marked the first time the claim had been documented in Warren's own handwriting, reignited a debate that had begun quiet down, and prompted yet another apology. 'As Senator Warren has said she is not a citizen of any tribe and only tribes determine tribal citizenship', Kristen Orthman, Warren's spokeswoman, said in a statement. 'She is sorry that she was not more mindful of this earlier in her career.'
^Warren, Elizabeth (February 9, 2005)."Sick and Broke".The Washington Post. p. A23.Archived from the original on September 21, 2019. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2019.
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