Elizabeth Warren's Biography - Essay Example

Task Elizabeth Warren Personal Biography Elizabeth Ann Warren is a leading female political figure in the United s. At 66 years of age, Elizabeth Warren was born in June 22, 1949 to working class parents. She was born in the city of Oklahoma. Her parents were Donald Jones Herring and Pauline Reed. Elizabeth grew up to become a notable figure in within the American public sphere as a leading academic, as well as a staunch politician affiliated to the Democratic Party. Currently, Elizabeth Warren is working as a politician, serving as a senior senator in the United States for the state of Massachusetts. A deeper look into the personal background of Elizabeth Warren provides that she was the fourth child of her parents, and she had three elder male siblings. Elizabeth’s dad had a serious heart attack when she was twelve years old. At this time, her father was working as a janitor. The heart attack that her father suffered led to very many medical bills and pay cuts since he was not in a position to undertake his work jurisdictions appropriately. The financial woes of the family worsened when they lost their family car for failing to honor the loan payments. Consequently, this forced other members of the family to seek employment opportunities in order to assist the ailing breadwinner in providing for the family. Elizabeth’s mother, for instance, worked in the department of catalog order at Sears, whilst Elizabeth worked at the restaurant of her aunt as a waitress. Elizabeth went through high schools and participated in many co-curricular activities, key among them, debating. I presume that through her debating skills that she learnt while at high school that she became such an avid female politician. She went to Northwest Classen High School whereby she was a star member of her debate team. In fact, she was so good that she won a debating title during debating competitions carried out against different debating teams from different high schools within the state of Oklahoma. The title of the prize she won was “Oklahoma’s Top High School Debater.” her debating skills were so good that she also won a debate scholarship to pursue her studies at the George Washington University. Elizabeth was 16 years of age at this time. Elizabeth initially intended to become a teacher after she finished her education. Apparently, this was not the case as she left the university after only two years to marry her high-school sweetheart, Jim Warren. Political Biography Elizabeth Warren has been in the public limelight for a number of years, as a staunch advocate for certain policies and ideologies, as well as a politician. She was a Republican voter for quite a number of years because she believed that Republicans supported markets best. However, this changed in 1995 when she shifted quarters and started voting as a Democrat as she lost her beliefs in the Republicans. Elizabeth’s prowess in the political field is attributable to her acute debating skills, evident through her high school years, as well as her later profession as a lawyer. For instance, Elizabeth worked previously as a professor in the Harvard School of Law where she specialized in bankruptcy law. Before this, she was a teacher of law at several universities across the United States especially in the late 1970s, through 1980s and later on in the 1990s. She specialized in and researched on issues relating to bankruptcy and personal finance of the middle class, who were the majority in the country. Later on in the mid 1990s, Elizabeth got involved actively in the public works of regulating bankruptcy within the country, as well as protecting consumers from exploitation. Furthermore, she also became an avid writer whereby she used the print media to pass across her opinion and suggestions on various hard topics. For instance, during the late 2000s, she achieved recognition through numerous publications that she made, such as “Time 100” and the “National Law Journal.” These publications made her to soar and become an increasingly influential figure about public policy (Warren 129). As such, this shows that Elizabeth is a prominent scholar in the legal field, and as such, stands out among the most cited legal scholars in the field of law. Furthermore, her role as a lawyer opens up when she stretches her muscles in consumer protection. She is in fact a very active advocate of consumer protection and her scholarship was the brainchild that resulted in the conception, as well as the establishment of the U.S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Elizabeth is equally famous through the various publications that she made in both popular and academic works. Furthermore, being a frequent subject of numerous media interviews makes her a public figure, especially in relation to Personal Finance and the American Economy. Her skills as a bankruptcy expert enabled her to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel formed after the financial crisis of 2008 that nearly crippled the US economy. The main mandate for the creation of this oversight panel was to be an overseer to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Some of the other big roles that she served in the political sphere include being the Assistant to the President, and being the Special Advisor to the Treasury Secretary for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection under President Barrack Obama. Elizabeth Warren joined politics officially in 2011 when she announced in September of the same year that she wanted to vie as a candidate for the United States Senate. She wanted to challenge Mr. Scott Brown, who was the current incumbent and a Republican politician for the state of Massachusetts. Elizabeth was able to emerge victorious by winning over the incumbent during the general elections that followed the next year in November 6, 2012. As such, she became the first elected female senator from the state of Massachusetts. As a senator, she got several roles assigned to her. These include the Senate Special Committee on Aging, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, as well as the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee (Warren 129). Currently, Elizabeth Warren stands out as leading figure within the Democratic Party, and equally described as so. She also features strongly among the American progressives. This has earned her several and frequent mentions from political pundits as a potential candidate for the 2016 Presidential elections after the end of President Obama’s tenure in office. However, sources claim that warren denied her intentions to run for presidency of the United States on more than one occasions. Political Behavior Elizabeth Warren stands out as a leading female politician, an influential public figure, as well as a staunch academic who is in a good position to lead the country to greater heights. She has a high public profile owing to her numerous appearances in documentary films, and on several television programs such as the Daily Show and Doctor Phil. Furthermore, her role in various public committees and special sittings make her stand out from the crowd as a woman of substance in the political field. Elizabeth worked as a chair to the TARP oversight committee created after the 2007 global financial crisis. Her appointment came on November 14, 2008 when Harry Reid, the then Senior Majority Leader of the United States Senate appointed her to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel comprising of five members. The panel was to oversee the effective implementation of the Emergency Stabilization Act created to wade the United States economy out of the global financial crisis created by the 2007 economic downturn. As such, this panel had to release oversight reports on a monthly basis that evaluated the bailout and related programs enforced by the government to stimulate the economy back to recovery. The reports presented to the congress during the tenure of Elizabeth covered wide topics including consumer and small business lending, foreclosure mitigation, commercial real estate, government guarantees, bank stress tests, AIG, the automotive industry, as well as the impact of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tyagi and Warren 57). Elizabeth also worked actively as an advocate for consumer protection. As such, she advocated for the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) established in 2010. This earned her special roles in government as an Assistant to the president, as well as the special advisor to the treasury secretary. These positions enabled her to champion for better economic values and rights provided to consumers within the country. As such, she fought to ensure that there was no injustice committed against consumers, especially with regard to pricing of goods and services, as well as the quality and quantity availed to the markets for consumers. She joined the senate after the 2012 general elections after beating the incumbent Republican senator for the state of Massachusetts, Mr. Scot Brown. Findings and Analysis from Different Authors From the above analysis, it is appropriate to establish that Elizabeth Warren is among the strongest female politicians within the United States political structure. This is evident from the numerous insinuations that she might run for presidency during the 2016 presidential elections. As such, this shows that she has a strong influence within the US government, as well as an equally avid support across the entire country owing to her role in consumer protection and bankruptcy management. She is a very popular and respected public figure owing to her numerous publications and appearances on local media, such as TV interviews and Daily shows where she speaks on issues affecting the common ordinary citizen within the country. She appears as an advocate for the middle-class in the society despite belonging to the upper class, meaning that she has a lot of concern for people from a lower level. These character traits mark her to become a special candidate for the presidential race come 2016 (Sulluvian, Warren and Westbrock 18). The paper confirms the numerous ideologies and suggestions provided on Elizabeth Warren as a staunch leading public figure, as well as a female political figure to look up to in the United States. Her values are clear and as such a good candidate for the top leadership of the country. Works Cited Sulluvian, Teressa, Warren Elizabeth and Westbrock Jay. As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy And Consumer Credit In America. Boston: Beard Books, 1999. Print. Sulluvian, Teressa, Warren Elizabeth and Westbrock Jay. The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debit. Yale: Yale University Press, 2008. Print. Tyagi, Amelia and Warren Elizabeth. All your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan. Cheltenham: Simon and Schuster, 2006. Print. Tyagi, Amelia and Warren Elizabeth. The Two-Income Gap: Why The Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke. New York: Basic Books, 2007. Print. Warren, Elizabeth. Prosperity, Peace, And Respect: How Presidents Manage the People’s Agenda. New York: Xlibris Corporation, 2011. Print. Read More