Will Elizabeth Warren Run for Senate?

What’s the Latest Development?

Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School professor and former Obama administration official, has filed paperwork to create an exploratory committee meant to estimate her chances of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate. “Warren has been traveling around Massachusetts this week conducting a self-described ‘listening tour.'” She would challenge the incumbency of Massachusetts’ freshman Senator Scott Brown, a Republican who shocked the traditionally liberal state by winning its Senate seat left vacant by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. 

What’s the Big Idea?

By all indications, Elizabeth Warren would be a fighting force for liberals in the Senate. In 2008, she was appointed to oversee the distribution of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (T.A.R.P.), funds given to prevent the nation’s largest banks from defaulting. In 2010, she advised the President on the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency meant to protect the interests of individual borrowers. Faced with opposition that would gut the agency, she insisted that businesses must not violate individuals’ rights.