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Elizabeth Warren Gets Senate Democratic Leadership Spot
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) gained a leadership position in the Senate Democratic caucus Thursday, giving the prominent progressive senator a key role in shaping the party's policy priorities.
Warren's new role, which was created specifically for her, will be strategic policy adviser to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, helping to craft the party's policy positions and priorities. She will also serve as a liaison to progressive groups to ensure they have a voice in leadership meetings and discussions, according to a source familiar with the role.
A source close to Warren told The Huffington Post that the senator was interested in the position because she wanted to have a seat at the table in the leadership meetings in order to influence the agenda.
Sources told HuffPost that Warren had the strong support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who wanted her as part of his team. Warren's presence in the weekly leadership meetings and her role helping to shape the caucus' policies are significant for progressives.
Reid's support for Warren also underscores his desire to push progressive policies in the next Congress, a priority his office has confirmed.
"If the ballot measure results are any indication, actual progressive policies remain popular with voters in red and blue states. I believe you’ll see a Senate Democratic caucus fight on behalf of those policies and provide the votes if and when Republicans are ready to act," Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Reid, told HuffPost earlier this month.
After the midterm elections, Warren wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post that called on Congress and the administration to move forward with progressive proposals instead of cutting deals simply for the sake of passing laws.
"Yes, we need action," she wrote. "But action must be focused in the right place: on ending tax laws riddled with loopholes that favor giant corporations, on breaking up the financial institutions that continue to threaten our economy, and on giving people struggling with high-interest student loans the same chance to refinance their debt that every Wall Street corporation enjoys."
Throughout Senate history, individual members have often steered away from leadership positions, worried that the horse-trading and consensus-gathering that leadership involves would neuter their power. But the Senate has been evolving in recent years into a much more leadership-driven institution, in which individual senators and even chairmen have less power than they once did compared to caucus leadership. Today, decisions that would have been made in side negotiations, in committee or on the floor are instead made by leadership.
It's those meetings that Warren will now be a part of. At the same time, she will diminish her ability to maintain that inside position if she criticizes the party from the outside. That dilemma, however, has been with her every step of her career, as she has moved closer to the center of power.
Erica Sagrans, campaign manager of Ready for Warren -- the campaign to convince Warren to run for president -- welcomed the senator's new role.
"Warren's new role shows how much of a leading voice she's become," said Sagrans. "It's a great opportunity to put her vision for working families front and center in Washington."
This is a developing story and will be updated.
