Progressives push for Warren to head consumer protection agency

The President is expected to sign the financial reform bill Wednesday. But before the bill is even law, the fights over how it will be implemented have already begun. One is over who will head the newly created bureau to protect consumers. As FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports, progressive groups are waging a vocal campaign in support of Elizabeth Warren:

TRANSCRIPT:

President Obama appointed Elizabeth Warren to oversee the $700 billion  bank bail-out. As head of the panel to oversee the program, the Harvard professor built a reputation of being tough on banks while aiming to protect home owners, victims of sub prime loans, and other consumers.

Her get-tough-on-banks stance has resulted a fan club of sorts. And now, anti-Wall-Street activists have begun a movement to appoint her to the head of the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau, the new government body to watch out for consumers.

Aaron Schwartz is co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. He started an online petition that now has more than 160,000 signatures. He says Warren is the right person for the job:

" As an activist, she came up with the idea of the CFPB, and has been a real watchdog voice fighting for working people up against these big banks that have been cheating them. So we think she is the perfect person to put this agency on the right track fighting for everyday Americans, rather than being another regulator that sucks up to big banks.”

Throughout the crafting of financial reform, the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau was central to the fight. Large banks lobbied aggressively against it, spending an unprecedented amount of money. Now the fight is about who will lead it.

The first person to lead this new agency would have a large amount of authority to shape the role and scope of the bureau.

The president is in charge of appointing the person to head it, but Senate confirmation is needed.

" Some have been more negative than positive, yes."

Conservative Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska said he is hearing from banks in Nebraska opposed to her:

" There are some who support her and some who oppose. But I don’t presume what the president’s thinking is on who to appoint, or who the president has in mind. But I would hope it would be somebody who has a balanced approach to dealing with the law and not think they’re a law unto themselves."

Senator Nelson refused to say if he would support her. He wasn’t the only one.  Most are withholding their opinion until the president names his choice.

But Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is advocating on her behalf. He wrote the president a letter Monday:

“There is a good deal of discontent within the progressive community that the president has not been strong enough in terms of standing up to Wall Street. But one way to do the right thing is to nominate Elizabeth Warren for this position.”

In a conference call with reporters last week, the president’s adviser, David Axelrod, said Warren is “obviously a candidate to lead this effort.”

A Treasury official told reporters Tuesday that the president would pick his candidate soon.

The president is expected to sign the financial reform bill into law Wednesday morning.

Leigh Ann Caldwell, FSRN, Washington.