Elizabeth Warren ruffling feathers early in clubby Senate [View all]

A freshman senator is causing a stir. Outspoken and impatient of the upper chamber's clubby atmosphere, this career academic is driven by intellectual self-confidence and a willingness to be abrasive. The result is bipartisan offense and admiration.

Warren clashed last month with Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, over the nomination of Michael Froman to serve as U.S. Trade Representative.

Even though Froman sailed through the Finance Committee, Warren criticized him on the chamber floor after he declined to give her information about trade negotiations.

Froman’s backers say he would have been approved sooner if not for Warren’s opposition. Baucus made his displeasure known after the vote.

“He went up to her after the vote and it looks like they had a pretty heated exchange,” said a source who witnessed the conversation last month. “He looked mad. It looked like she failed to warn him and he called her out on it.”

More: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/312397-elizabeth-warren-ruffling-feathers-early-in-clubby-senate

----------

Elizabeth Warren, hard-liner

Earlier this week at the White House, President Barack Obama tried to use his powers of persuasion on Elizabeth Warren, privately urging the consumer watchdog-turned-Massachusetts senator to back the student loan deal he was reaching with Senate leaders.

It didn’t work.

On Thursday, she went to the Senate floor to attack the plan, saying it would hurt students and benefit big banks. “I think this whole system stinks. We should not go along with any plan that continues to produce profits for the government. It is wrong,” Warren said.

This wasn’t an isolated incident; after nearly seven months in office, Warren has staked out firm ground to the left of the president and Senate Democratic leaders. She has called for prosecuting the actors in the financial meltdown; urged Senate leaders to invoke the “nuclear option” to help confirm Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create; and was one of just four senators to vote against Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative nominee, demanding more transparency on trade agreements.

For someone elected as a liberal darling after facing opposition for the CFPB job —and whose name is often seen alongside “2016” — Warren’s causing some heartburn for her fellow Democrats.

More: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/elizabeth-warren-hard-liner-94493.html