Elizabeth Warren

BOSTON Blond, blue-eyed Elizabeth Warren, the Senate candidate in Massachusetts and Harvard professor who cites "family lore" that she is 1/32nd Cherokee, was inducted into Oklahoma's Hall of Fame last year. Her biography on OklahomaHeritage.com says that she "can track both sides of her family in Oklahoma long before statehood" (1907) and "she proudly tells everyone she encounters that she is ‘an Okie to my toes.' " It does not mention any Cherokee great-great-great-grandmother.

BOSTON — Democrats are dispatching a lineup of political heavyweights to Massachusetts, backed by a river of outside money, to head off the possibility that another upstart Republican pulls off a Senate special election stunner. National Republican groups have been reluctant to devote resources to a race that many Washington-based strategists have thought unwinnable for the GOP. Yet both parties know special elections draw far fewer voters — and they remember the special election in...

Elizabeth Warren is the kind of person Massachusetts has always liked to send to the U.S. Senate. She would instantly become a national leader, which appeals in a state that has sent to Washington Democrats such as John and Edward Kennedy and Republicans such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Edward Brooke. The Harvard Law School professor who warned of abuses in the financial system long before the economic crisis should draw suburban liberals who admire her seriousness as well as lunch-bucket Democrats who appreciate her populism.

In July 2010, nearly two years after the 2008 financial crisis exposed the vulnerability of the world's economic system, Congress passed sweeping changes to laws regulating the U.S. financial industry. Washington Post associate editor Robert G. Kaiser persuaded the bill's main sponsors, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), to give him behind-the-scenes access to observe the bill's journey from conception to enactment, an 18-month odyssey that involved...

Regarding the May 7 front-page article " Stakes high as liberal hero tries to unseat GOP senator ": Karen Tumulty wrote a straightforward story on the Massachusetts Senate race. Unfortunately, The Post ran it with headlines describing Elizabeth Warren as a liberal "hero" and "icon. " Warren is arguably well-qualified, with solid support, but she has never won elective office. Those descriptions are unearned, in my view, and devalue their usage. It is also amusing to note that Sen. Scott Brown (R)

On June 3 The Post claimed that Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren had the " worst week in Washington " [Outlook] on the same day as it reported that she "won her party's overwhelming endorsement" [" Mass. Democrats endorse Warren, shutting out primary opponent ," news story]. This was a very good week for her in my book and good news for those of us who care about fixing government and the economy. This is the second time that "Worst Week" has named Warren as its subject in connection with the trivial issue of her...

Regarding David Treuer's May 6 Outlook commentary, " Warren says she's Native American. So she is . ": I beg to differ, and so does Uncle Sam. The definition of the racial category "American Indian or Alaska Native" — at least according to the federal government's Standard Form 181 , "Ethnicity and Race Identification" — is "[a] person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

When the Senate goes on recess at the end of this week, President Obama should appoint Elizabeth Warren to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). By making a recess appointment, the president can name the best qualified leader to head the new agency, while demonstrating he's willing to stand up to Republican obstruction and Wall Street pressure. He'll earn plaudits not only from the base of the Democratic Party that adores Warren but also from independent voters, who will be thankful for an advocate for consumers willing to...

It seems everybody is afraid of Elizabeth Warren , the Harvard law professor charged by President Obama with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . The Wall Street Journal editorial page called her "President Warren" and a "czar" in command of an "empire. " Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate banking committee, thinks she's orchestrating a "regulatory shakedown" of mortgage companies. And Spencer Bachus, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee,...

She called herself the "warm-up act" for Bill Clinton at the Democratic Convention, but Elizabeth Warren electrified the crowd by delivering the fierce heat of the truth straight from the heart: "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs — the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of...

BOSTON — Two weeks after the Boston Marathon bombing served as a reminder of the unique role that this city and Massachusetts play in the American story, primary voters went to the polls this week to choose a successor to John F. Kerry in the Senate. In the June 25 general election, the choice will be between Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the dean of the state's congressional delegation, and Republican newcomer Gabriel Gomez, a private-equity investor and former Navy SEAL.

Lawmakers lambasted regulators Thursday for providing poor oversight of consultants hired to review millions of troubled home loans as part of a multibillion-­dollar foreclosure agreement with the country's largest banks. "People want to know that their regulators are watching out for the American public, not the banks," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told regulators at the Senate banking committee hearing. "Without transparency, [we] cannot have any confidence in your oversight or that markets are...

Democrats on the Senate banking committee on Tuesday approved the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — just as they did nearly two years ago. Clearing the committee, even by a slim 12-10 margin, was a minor feat. The real hurdle will come on the Senate floor. Cordray's nomination remains at the center of a larger political fight over the structure of the watchdog agency and, although the Democrats have 55 seats in the Senate, a single...

Four years ago, Elizabeth Warren was a Harvard Law professor crusading for the creation of a consumer protection agency to police the abusive practices that harmed millions of Americans during the financial crisis. Now that Warren has taken office as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, she is fighting from inside the system to keep the upstart Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's power intact as her Republican colleagues vow to block the confirmation of CFPB director Richard Cordray.

BOSTON — On the chilly morning after her election to the U.S. Senate , Elizabeth Warren greeted ecstatic commuters and faced the next inevitable question. How would the new, scholarly heroine of the political left, who once spoke of her willingness to leave "blood and teeth on the floor" in her fight for consumer protection, position herself at a moment when American politics demands both an unyielding brawler and bipartisan compromise? Warren's first post-election answer left plenty of room...

Elizabeth Warren's race in Massachusetts may have been the most closely watched win by a female senator-elect from Tuesday night. But her election points to another big win for women in the Senate. The returns so far show at least 20 women will be serving in the upper chamber come January, a historic high. All of the incumbents won their races, and the elections of Warren, Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Democrat Mazie...

Here is a summary of the election results in Massachusetts: (View full map) In a tightly contested Senate race, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren beat incumbent Republican incumbent Senator Scott Brown. As Stephanie McCrummen reported : Warren, who rose to national prominence as chair of the congressional panel overseeing the 2008 Wall Street bailout, is the first woman to be elected U.S. senator from Massachusetts. ...

BOSTON— Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and bankruptcy expert who has spent her career documenting the decline of middle-class America, won the hotly contested Senate race in Massachusetts on Tuesday night, defeating Republican incumbent Scott Brown and reclaiming the seat held for decades by liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy. Warren, who rose to national prominence as chair of the congressional panel overseeing the 2008 Wall Street bailout, is the first woman to be elected U.S. senator from...