If winning the Democratic nomination requires wooing the party’s progressive wing and harnessing the power of activist women, then Senator Elizabeth Warren has a plan for that.
At a rally in New York City’s Washington Square Park on Monday evening, just hours after she beat Senator Bernie Sanders for the coveted endorsement of the Working Families Party, Warren laid out a far-reaching anti-corruption plan that rooted her campaign in a long history of women reformers.
But the speech also served as a road map for her path to the nomination, positioning Warren as the only candidate in the race who can knit together the women voters and progressive activists who propelled the Democrats to midterm victories in 2018.
Standing before a huge crowd just steps from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory building, Warren outlined a plan to curb the influence of corporate money in Washington. She proposed a lifetime ban on lobbying for ex-Presidents, Senators and Members of Congress; a ban on hiring corporate lobbyists on federal government staff; a ban on lobbying on behalf of foreign governments; a ban on corporate lobbyists “bundling” campaign donations; a ban on secret meetings between public officials and lobbyists; a ban on elected officials owning businesses or trading individual stocks.
“Enough is enough,” Warren said. “We will take down the ‘for sale’ signs hanging outside of every federal building in Washington.”
It came as no surprise that Warren, who has been railing against corruption since her time as a Harvard Law School professor, seized on the theme. But if the policy was familiar, the narrative was new. Warren used the speech to situate her campaign in a long history of women reformers and labor organizers who have taken on big corporate interests and won.
NSP