Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is backing Hillary Clinton’s call to block Republicans’ efforts to chip away at banking reform, giving the Democratic front-runner a rare nod from an important influencer on progressive voters.
The Massachusetts senator signaled her support through her political social media channels, which hadn’t been touched in at least a week.
“Secretary Clinton is right to fight back against Republicans trying to sneak Wall Street giveaways into the must-pass government funding bill,” she wrote on Facebook.
{mosads}”Whether it’s attacking the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau], undermining new rules to rein in unscrupulous retirement advisers, or rolling back any part of the hard-fought progress we’ve made on financial reform, she and I agree.”
The praise comes in response to Clinton’s Monday New York Times op-ed in which she called on all Democrats to stop Republican-led efforts to loosen requirements prompted by the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
“Republicans, both in Congress and on the campaign trail, are dead-set on rolling back critical financial protections,” Clinton wrote.
“President Obama and congressional Democrats should do everything they can to stop these efforts.”
Clinton added that as president, she’d veto legislation that “would weaken financial reform” while also pushing for “tough new rules, stronger enforcement and more accountability that go well beyond Dodd-Frank.”
In addition to Monday’s praise of Clinton’s ideas, she recently lauded Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), pushing back against the suggestion that he’s hit a wall at the polls.
Many major progressive groups, including MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, had launched draft movements to convince Warren to run before backing off after she repeatedly ruled out running. Her departure has prompted Sanders to fill the void as the progressive alternative to Clinton, and the Ready for Warren draft group spun off earlier this year to back Sanders.
Warren remains a key figure in the race, even from the sidelines, as many ascribe Clinton’s tack toward more progressive stances as partly influenced by Warren and Sanders.
But she was the only Democratic female senator to skip a fundraiser with Clinton last week and is the only member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation who hasn’t endorsed Clinton.