Warren’s new Senate role boosts far-left’s clout

Elizabeth Warren is set up better than ever to push President Biden on student loan cancellation, pull her colleagues to take a stance on a wealth tax, and shape left-wing Democratic Party priorities on taxing and spending in the Senate.

After finally working out a power-sharing agreement with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced this week that the Massachusetts senator will join the powerful Senate Finance Committee.

The former Harvard Law School professor and expert in bankruptcy law was waging battles over fiscal policy and legislation (and butting heads with then-Sen. Joe Biden over a 2005 bankruptcy bill) long before she became an elected official. She helped craft the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

Now, her posts on both the finance committee and the budget committee put her in one of the most visible and powerful positions of any of her colleagues for those issues. And she’s already working on being an “aggressive advocate” and a “progressive voice at the table,” as she said in a statement.