Warren, Elizabeth (1949-…), became a United States senator in 2013. Warren, a Democrat , represents Massachusetts . Prior to her election as senator, Warren had worked as a law professor and as an adviser to President Barack Obama .
Elizabeth Ann Herring was born on June 22, 1949, in Norman, Oklahoma. Her family called her “Betsy.” She and her family lived in Norman during her early school years and then moved to Oklahoma City. She was a state debate champion in high school. After graduation, she attended George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., for two years. She earned a bachelor’s degree in speech pathology (a field dealing with speech problems and treatment) from the University of Houston in 1970. She earned a law degree from the Rutgers School of Law in 1976.
Elizabeth married Jim Warren, an engineer in the aerospace industry, when she was 19. The Warrens had two children, Amelia and Alex. The couple later divorced. Elizabeth Warren married Bruce Mann, a law professor, in 1980.
After earning her law degree, Warren briefly worked as a lawyer. She then worked as a law professor at several universities, including the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania. She began teaching at Harvard Law School in 1992. Warren has written a number of books. She is the coauthor, with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, of The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke (2003) and All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan (2005). Other books include the memoir A Fighting Chance (2014) and This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (2017).
In 2008, during a severe economic slump, Warren was selected to chair a congressional panel overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). TARP provided $700 billion for the government to purchase bad debts from troubled lenders. Warren, a consumer advocate, had been critical of some banks and their financial practices. In 2010, President Obama appointed Warren to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Republicans in Congress, however, blocked Warren from being appointed as the bureau’s first director.
In 2012, Warren defeated her Republican opponent, incumbent Senator Scott Brown , in a race for a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat. She took office in 2013. In the Senate, Warren has served on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and the Special Committee on Aging. Warren won reelection in 2018. In December 2018, Warren announced that she would seek her party’s 2020 nomination for president of the United States . She campaigned for the Democratic nomination until March 2020, when she dropped out while trailing former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders in the race for delegates.
