To the Editor:
Last week, I proudly and enthusiastically cast an early vote for Elizabeth Warren. I stand by my conviction that her vision and know-how is the right choice for Massachusetts, and here’s why.
Growing up in a household where money was tight, Warren saw her family struggle to meet expensive medical bills when her father, a janitor, suffered a heart attack. She took her first job waiting tables at the age of 13. She got married at 19. In the midst of raising her first child, she worked her way through a state university to receive a law degree and graduated pregnant with her second child. Through sheer brilliance and years of hard work, Warren rose up through the ranks to become a professor at Harvard Law. For a time, she was one of the few tenured professors to have received a law degree from a public law school. These accomplishments were no walk in the park.
Her experiences resulted in a life and career firmly dedicated to the cause of helping and finding solutions for the American middle class. Warren’s story exemplifies the best of the American upward mobility and remarkably, she’s chosen to pay it forward.
She has wrangled with the best of them in Washington throughout her career on behalf of middle class families. In the ‘90s she testified against efforts to limit consumers’ ability to file for bankruptcy. She led the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program in the immediate aftermath of the financial meltdown. And who can forget she was the mastermind behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, setting up an institution to help the average citizen against unfairly imposed fees and interest rates by credit card companies and lending institutions.
As for Scott Brown, sure, he has bucked against his party on certain Senate votes, but they’ve all been given at face value and not without completely undermining important pieces of legislation for the benefit of Wall Street. He’s given subsidies to big oil companies and tax breaks to millionaires. He’s voted against three jobs bills and pay equity. Brown clearly lacks the agenda and vision for true moderate leadership, showing all of the characteristics of a classic retail politician. Massachusetts can do better than that.
Furthermore, one shouldn’t be quick to dismiss Warren as a diehard Democratic partisan: she was a registered Republican for 10 years and has voted for candidates in both parties in the past. A writer for the conservative Weekly Standard has called aspects of her middle-class advocacy “positively Nixonian” at times.
Finally, I’ll provide full disclosure: as a Boston University senior who will graduate knee deep in loans next spring, I want someone in the Senate who will lead the way in helping to make an excellent college education affordable and within reach. Elizabeth Warren knows the subject inside and out and has come up with excellent ideas that can aid students, such as a public service-linked mechanism to help finance college education. When she set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she prioritized helping students navigate the complex student loan process.
With a remarkable mind and a great vision, a voice like hers would be indispensable to Massachusetts, and for that, I am proud to have given her my vote.
Margarita Diaz
BU College Democrats
Deputy Communications Director
College of Arts and Sciences, Class of 2013
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