Las Vegas (CNN) - Elizabeth Warren is a hero at Netroots Nation, a gathering of progressive bloggers and activists meeting this week in Las Vegas.
Warren is a leading candidate for director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). And many of the Netroots advocates here vow to use their fundraising and online muscle to press President Obama and Democrats in Congress to make that happen.
Warren, a Harvard professor and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is an outspoken consumer advocate who originally proposed the idea for such a bureau. The financial reform legislation signed by President Obama this week made the CFPB a reality. And in an interview with ABC News on Thursday, the President indicated that Warren is among those he's considering as the Bureau's director.
But Warren has critics in the business community, and both Obama and a key Democratic leader in Congress have made it clear she is no shoo-in for the post.
President Obama signed financial reform legislation into law on Wednesday. (PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images)
New York (CNNMoney.com) - After more than a year of work and months of grueling debates on Capitol Hill, President Obama on Wednesday signed the Wall Street reform bill, the most sweeping overhaul of the financial system since the New Deal.
"These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history," Obama said. "And these protections will be enforced by a new consumer watchdog with just one job: looking out for people – not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses – in the financial system."
In a major signing ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Obama was flanked by a number of lawmakers who worked on the legislation, including Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the two committee chairmen who sponsored the bill.
Washington (CNNMoney.com) - As soon as President Obama's name shows up on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law Wednesday, there will be some changes in the way the financial industry does business.
Immediately, regulators will get new powers to take down failing giant financial firms – powers they didn't have in 2008 when the investment firm Lehman Brothers collapsed and threatened the entire financial system.
Other big provisions are closer to a year away, such as forcing complex financial contracts to be traded on open exchanges, and creating new consumer protection rules requiring more disclosure and fewer hidden fees for mortgages and credit cards.
President Obama will sign into law Wednesday a sweeping Wall Street reform bill. (PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images)
Washington (CNN) – President Obama will sign into law Wednesday the Wall Street reform bill - the most-sweeping set of changes to America's financial regulatory system since the 1930s.
The legislation will vastly reform the way big financial firms do business.
This is "reform that will prevent the kind of shadowy deals that led to this crisis, reform that would never again put taxpayers on the hook for Wall Street's mistakes," the president said last week.
The bill aims to strengthen consumer protection, rein in complex financial products and head off more bank bailouts.
The Senate approved the reforms Thursday on a 60 to 39 vote, ending more than a year-long effort to pass legislation in response to the 2008 financial crisis.
Editor's note: Gloria Borger is a senior political analyst for CNN, appearing regularly on CNN's "The Situation Room," "AC360°" and "State of the Union," as well as participating in special event coverage.
Washington (CNN) - Ask anyone at the White House about the importance of the financial reform bill the president will sign today, and the answer is near-universal: a colossal achievement. And why not?
It's sweeping legislation: creating new consumer protections, making it unattractive for institutions to become "too big to fail," imposing new rules for financial transparency.
And, by the way, it's also a pretty popular idea, in theory at least: 60 percent of Americans say they want to reform Wall Street, according to a recent CNN poll. So it's a no-brainer, right?
Washington (CNNMoney.com) – Wall Street reform isn't quite the law of the land, but already top Democrats are battling over who President Obama should name to run the signature piece of the measure: the consumer protection agency.
For more than a year, the top pick has been assumed to be Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor who came up with a lot of the original ideas behind the agency.
"Elizabeth Warren is a great, great champion for consumers, the middle class families across this country. . . And what has been done here in many ways reflects something that she's been advocating for years and years and years," said White House Adviser David Axelrod last Friday, confirming Warren as one of a few candidates for the job.
(CNN) - President Barack Obama is planning to sign the financial regulatory reform bill into law next Wednesday, according to senior administration officials.
Washington (CNNMoney.com) – The Senate on Thursday afternoon passed the most sweeping set of changes to the financial regulatory system since the 1930s, sending the Wall Street reform bill to President Obama.
The Senate voted 60 to 39 to pass the reforms, ending more than a year-long effort to pass legislation in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Obama is expected to sign the bill into law next week.
CNN Radio Political Notebook:
"We made a promise in the fall of '08 that we'd do everything in our power to see to it we'd never again put the American public in the position we were in September and early October 2008," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. "And we have fulfilled that promise with this legislation."
Earlier in the day lawmakers voted 60-38 to end debate on the legislation, with three Republicans joining Democrats to support it.
Washington (CNN) - Hours before expected passage Thursday afternoon of the Wall Street reform bill, the top House Republican called for the legislation to be repealed.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters, "I think it ought to be repealed. There are common sense things that you should do to plug the holes in the regulatory system that were there, and to bring more transparency to financial transactions, because transparency is like sunlight. Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
Boehner, who came under fire from Democrats for comparing the bill to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," again slammed the bill as going too far.
"I think the financial reform bill is ill conceived, going to make credit harder for the American people to get, clearly harder for businesses to get and the fact that it's going to punish every banker in America for the sins of the few on Wall Street is unwise. On top of that I think it institutionalizes 'too big to fail' and gives far too much authority to federal bureaucrats to bail out virtually any company in America they decide ought to be bailed out."
A representative for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately slammed Boehner's comments.
"This comes as no surprise coming from the Republican House leader who called the financial crisis that caused 8 million Americans to lose their jobs an 'ant,'" Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said in a statement. "Democrats will stand with the Middle Class and Main Street, while Washington Republicans, who are out of touch, will continue to stand with Wall Street."
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