Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Ann Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is a member of the United States Senate from the State of Massachusetts since 2013 and a former law professor. She is best known for proposing and pushing President Obama to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Political Spectrum


Immigration
Elizabeth Warren voted in favor of the Senate bill S.744 that would give Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status to most illegal immigrants who entered the country prior to January 1, 2012, who passed a background check, had not committed a serious crime, and paid fees and a fine. After 10 years with RPI status, they could adjust to permanent residency and, three years later, become citizens. The bill would also eliminate diversity visa lottery—the visa category that accounts for roughly one-fifth of permanent visas going to African migrants to the United States—and the family-based green card category for siblings of U.S. citizens, a critical component of family unity. Ultimately the legislation was not allowed to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives by a Republican speaker John Boehner.

In July 2019 Warren's campaign released her new comprehensive immigration policy platform. One of its main points is making illegal entry and reentry after deportation into the United States a civil offense, not a criminal one — reversing a law that has been on the books for decades but that was rarely enforced until the George W. Bush administration, when criminal prosecution of unauthorized immigrants for illegal entry became increasingly common. The change would effectively end the practice of family separation. Warren also says she would get rid of government contracts with private detention facilities, and cut down on the use of detention for migrants awaiting their day in court altogether. She’s also proposing to reshape Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, focusing the agencies’ efforts on screening cargo, identifying counterfeit goods, and preventing smuggling and trafficking, and ending the program that allows local law enforcement to be deputized as immigration deportation forces.

Warren calls for reinstating DACA and expand the program to include anyone brought to the United States under the age of 18. She also wants protections for families of DREAMers and some workers. Unlike her primary rival Senator Kamala Harris, who proposed using executive authority to provide a pathway to citizenship for these immigrants, Warren said she would work with Congress. She also pledges to admit 125,000 refugees in her first year as president, and 175,000 per year by the end of her first term. (President Trump capped refugee admissions at 30,000 in 2019.) Senator pledges to reverse Trump’s restrictions on those seeking asylum to again include victims of gang violence and domestic abuse and end the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which the administration has used to require asylum seekers to wait on the other side of the border to have their cases heard.

Warren is also calling for more support for legal immigration, including redistributing unused visas to address the millions currently in the backlog waiting for a way to enter the United States, and lower barriers to naturalization — like application fees — facing green cardholders.

Healthcare
In December of 2016 Warren was one of the few opponnnts of the 21st Century Cures Act, legislation designed to increase funding for disease research, strongly supported by then-president Barrack Obama. One of Warren's main concerns with the bill was that it did not includedprovisions to rein in prescription drug prices, which she viewed as a significant victory for the pharmaceutical industry. When asked by a journalist whether she will support the legislation, Warren responded by saying: "I will fight because I know the difference between compromise and extortion.”.

In September 2017 Warren officially gave her support for Bernie's Sanders Medicare for all proposal. Warren said that the plan would guarantee medical care for all at the lowest prices. In a message to her supporters ,she said, "Health care is a basic human right and it's time to fight for it.".

However, in contrast to Senator Sanders's approach of passing Medicare for all as quickly as possible when elected, Senator Warren has a three-year plan that includes using a quirk in the budget process to allow the legislation passage with a simple majority vote -- bypassing the 60-vote Senate threshold -- and “fast-tracking” a Medicare for All option that would immediately cover children under the age of 18 and families making less than $51,000 a year, and provide an option for expanded Medicare for people over 50. In the first three years, anyone else could buy into Medicare for All at a “modest” cost, Warren said, before it eventually became free.

By her third year in office, Warren said, “the American people will have experienced the full benefits of a true Medicare for All option, and they can see for themselves how that experience stacks up against high-priced care that requires them to fight tooth-and-nail against their insurance company.” Senator estimates the total cost of the single-payer healthcare system at $20.5 trillion.

Abortion
During a debate in 2012 for Massachusetts's Senate seat, Warren stated that she will reject any Supreme Court nominee who opposes abortion.

In May of 2019 after a growing number of states have moved to drastically restrict access to abortion by adopting or proposing so-called “heartbeat” bills – legislations that would ban abortion as soon as a physician is able to detect a fetal heartbeat (among those were Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia) Warren released a statement calling on Congress to pass a slate of legislation aimed at guaranteeing abortion and other reproductive rights around the country. Ensuring that even if Roe v. Wade  falls after being brought for the ruling to the Supreme Court, federal abortion rights shaped by the case will remain the same.

In the statement mentioned above, Warren called on Congress to enshrine the right to abortion in federal statute, in case  Roe v. Wade  is overturned and the current federal right to abortion is taken away. She also calls for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for most abortions, and federal legislation preventing states from passing medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion clinics. And she proposes a reversal of the Trump administration’s domestic gag rule, which bars providers that receive federal family planning funds from performing or referring patients for abortions.

Gun Laws
Warren supports reinstating an extended magazine long rifle weapons ban as well as more rigorous background screenings, including for people who purchase firearms at gun shows, and she opposes limits on the sharing of firearms trace information. On April 17, 2013, she voted to expand background checks for gun purchases.

In November 2017, Warren became a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act introduced by Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a bill that would form a charge of Domestic Violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions would have to be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms. The legislation never passed the Senate.

At the beginning of 2019, Warren joined 40 of her Senate colleagues, led by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), in reintroducing the Background Check Expansion Act to expand federal background checks to all gun sales. Under current federal law, unlicensed or private sellers are not required to conduct a background check prior to transferring a firearm.

Research indicates that as many as a quarter of all gun sales in the United States may occur without a background check. The Background Check Expansion Act will require background checks for the sale or transfer of all firearms. This requirement extends to all unlicensed sellers, whether they do business online, at gun shows or out of their home.

Exceptions to the Background Check Expansion Act include transfers between law enforcement officers, temporarily loaning firearms for hunting and sporting events, providing firearms as gifts to immediate family members, transferring a firearm as part of an inheritance, or temporarily transferring a firearm for immediate self-defense. On the first of August 2019 the legislation was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

Religion
While asked about “What role does faith play in your life, your public life and your private life?” at a CNN Town Hall on 11th March 2019, Sen. Warren explained how her Christian faith shapes her liberal politics.

She said she was raised Methodist and taught Sunday school to elementary school students. Then, she mentioned her favorite Bible passage, the parable of the sheep and the goats. In the passage, Jesus urges his followers to care for the marginalized, saying, “When you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Warren said the passage taught her two things: “The first is there is God. There is value in every single human being.” And the second, Warren said, “is that we are called to action.”

Warren went on to say: “That passage is not about you had a good thought and held onto it. You sat back and were just a part of — you know, thought about good things. It does not say, you just didn’t hurt anybody, and that’s good enough. No. It says you saw something wrong. You saw somebody who was thirsty. You saw somebody who was in prison. You saw their face. You saw somebody who was hungry, and it moved you to act. I believe we are called on to act.”

LGBT Rights
Warren expressed support for same-sex marriage and passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act during her 2012 Senate campaign. In July 2015 Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) along with 81 of their congressional colleagues wrote a letter in which they asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to lift the ban in the blood donation policy and replace it with a one-year deferral.

The rules FDA has proposed would allow men to donate blood if they’ve abstained from sexual activity with another man for the past 12 months. The same 12-month deferral would apply to women who have sex with men who have sex with other men. The ban was originally enacted during the national AIDS epidemic in 1983 and last updated in 1992. Lawmakers wanted FDA’s proposed changes to be a first step toward implementing a risk-based blood donation policy for gay and bisexual men. In the letter, they said they want a policy that secures the nation’s blood supply in a non-discriminatory, scientifically sound manner.

In 2017 Warren cosponsored the Equality Act of 2017 legislation focused on ensuring equal protection laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination in areas of employment, housing or public accommodations (like restaurants, hotels, and other places that serve the public).

Wall Street Regulations
In July 2015 Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) reintroduced legislation to revive the Glass-Steagall Act, which would force big banks to split their investment and commercial banking practices. The bill would separate traditional banking with checking and savings accounts from financial institutions that offer services such as investment banking, which are riskier. The bill never went through the Senate and was reintroduced again in 2017 with similar results.

Warren was an early advocate for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). It was established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and Warren personally lobbied President Obama to include the creation of CFPB in the bill as he was hesitant. After the legislation has passed Warren was assigned recruit staff and initiate policies for regulating mortgages, student loans, and other consumer credit products, and had a voice in picking the first director.

In April 2019 Elizabeth Warren along with 5 other Democratic senators, including two presidential candidates, sent a letter to the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that the agency proves it is policing the companies, known as servicers, that the government pays to manage its trillion-dollar, federal student loan portfolio. The concern was related to an extremely low number of people admitted to the agency run Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to which from over 41,000 petitions only 206 loans were accepted for a discharge.

Estate Tax
Senator Warren supports a complete rollback of The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and reintroducing the previous Obama Era tax policies.

As one of the key elements needed to fund her Medicare for All plan, Senator Warren introduced an additional 3 percent wealth tax on taxpayer net wealth above $1 billion, bringing her proposed wealth tax up to 2 percent on net wealth above $50 million and 6 percent on net wealth above $1 billion. Assuming a 15 percent avoidance rate, she estimated that it will raise an additional $1 trillion from 2020-2029.

Income and Corporate Taxes
Senator Warren supports a complete rollback of The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and reintroducing the previous Obama Era tax policies.

Warren proposes to eliminate the preferential tax rates on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends for the top 1 percent of households and apply them to ordinary income tax rates. Her proposition includes implementing a “mark-to-market” tax system on capital gains for the top 1 percent of households, where capital gains income (excluding retirement accounts) would be taxed annually instead of only when an asset is sold or transferred. Both are estimated to raise about $2 trillion from 2020-2029. Another one of Senator's propositions called Real Corporate Profits Tax would introduce a 7% corporate tax that would apply to every dollar above $100 million that a company reports in profits. The tax would exist in conjunction with the overall corporate tax rate, which Warren hopes will raise $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

She also plans to introduce a special tax rate for corporations that spend excessive amounts of money on lobbying aiming to deter corporations and trade organizations from influencing government through high spending. It would tax firms that spend between $500,000 and $1 million on lobbying at a rate of 35%, which increases to a 60% rate on firms that spend above $1 million and 75% on firms that spend above $5 million.

The money raised from the taxes would be committed to Warren’s “Lobbying Defense Trust Fund,” dedicated to strengthening government against the influence of lobbyists.

Social Security
Elizabeth Warren policy agenda includes the expansion of Social Security, which she hopes will be the biggest increase to the retirement program in 50 years.

Warren’s plan intends to give current and future recipients $200 more per month. It would be financed by a 14.8% contribution requirement on individual wages above $250,000 as well as a 14.8% contribution requirement on net investment income for individuals making more than $250,000 and families making more than $400,000.

Justice System Reform
In August 2019 Elizabeth Warren put forward her proposals designed to overhaul the criminal justice system. They include targeting long prison sentences, mandatory minimums, cash bail, and drug policies focused on incarceration over addiction treatment. In her plan Warren argues more broadly against criminalizing homelessness, poverty, and mental health problems. She also calls for repealing the '''1994 crime law. '''

In her agenda Senator Warren lists several other policy ideas aimed at reducing incarceration and making the overall criminal justice system less punitive: establishing a clemency board to release more people from prison early, decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level, raising the age of criminal liability to 18, restricting civil forfeiture, boosting resources for public defenders, ending the death penalty, increasing oversight of police, eliminating solitary confinement, banning private prisons, and getting rid of fees for phone calls and bank transfers in prison, among other proposals.

She also promises to use the federal government’s funding powers to get states to reduce incarceration and reform their criminal justice systems. This is important since about 88 percent of people who are held in prison are incarcerated at the state level, while only 12 percent are at the federal level. About half of federal prisoners are kept for drug offenses, while the majority of state prisoners are in for violent crimes.

However, Warren does include a few exceptions in her push to decarcerate, particularly executives whose companies are linked to crimes, including financial institutions and opioid painkiller makers.

Warren also focuses much of her plan on essentially preventing the need for prison — by taking steps to prevent crime and violence in the first place. She would encourage more targeted police strategies, such as “focused deterrence,” that focus on the few people at risk for violence and crime. She points to her gun violence plan, which promises stronger gun laws. She would dedicate more resources to schools with the goal of keeping children in school and engaged.

Global warming
In April, Ms. Warren released a plan to ban fossil-fuel leasing on public lands. In June, she unveiled a proposal calling for $2 trillion in spending on “green manufacturing,” which is incorporated in her new, broader climate plan In September of 2019, Ms. Warren released her comprehensive plan to fight climate change. She adopted into her agenda parts of her fellow 2020 primary competitor Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s proposal to eliminate planet-warming emissions from power plants, vehicles and buildings over 10 years, and added an additional $1 trillion in spending to subsidize that transition. Under Warren's scheme, the spending would be paid for by reversing the Trump administration’s tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.

Among the goals set out in Warren's plan are;: 100 percent zero-carbon pollution from new commercial and residential buildings by 2028; 100 percent zer- emissions standards for all new cars, buse,s and light- and medium-duty trucks by 2030; and 100 percent zero-emission energy in electric generation by 2035.

She plans to expand DOE 's loan guarantee program and the Rural Utilities Service to accelerate the transition to clean energy, as well as expand the interstate and regional coordination on the electric grid.

Massachusetts' Senator also included a labor component in her proposal, promising to help workers move from high-paying union jobs in fossil fuel industries, like refining and coal mining, into green jobs retrofitting buildings and installing clean energy. She pledged that the jobs will be unionized with benefits and pay scales. Like Mr. Inslee’s proposal, her plan would set regulations aimed at retiring coal-fired electricity within a decade, but also fund health care and pensions for coal miners.

The legislation is also aiming to transform the aviation, rail and maritime sectors, largely by prioritizing research into how to clean up these high-emissions activities.