Elizabeth Warren: Fighter or Pinata?

I’m never quite happy when a major media outlet like the New York Times refers to a woman as an inanimate object.  Even if the article is flattering, the metaphor still stings. The caption below her picture reads “President Obama’s adviser on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” too.  Obama may own her appointment but he doesn’t own the woman who has been on the side of consumers of banking services for a very long time.  If Elizabeth Warren is an object of loathing for both bankers and Republicans, it’s because she’s a fighter.  She’s not a passive thing and she certainly wasn’t passive during recent hearings.  A person doesn’t  become a tenured professor at a competitive place like Harvard’s law school by being passive.

And thus the real purpose of the hearing: to allow the Republicans who now run the House to box Ms. Warren about the ears. The big banks loathe Ms. Warren, who has made a career out of pointing out all the ways they gouge financial consumers — and whose primary goal is to make such gouging more difficult. So, naturally, the Republicans loathe her too. That she might someday run this bureau terrifies the banks. So, naturally, it terrifies the Republicans.

The banks and their Congressional allies have another, more recent gripe. Rather than waiting until July to start helping financial consumers, Ms. Warren has been trying to help them now. Can you believe the nerve of that woman?

At the request of the states’ attorneys general, all 50 of whom have banded together to investigate the mortgage servicing industry in the wake of the foreclosure crisis, she has fed them ideas that have become part of a settlement proposal they are putting together. Recently, a 27-page outline of the settlement terms was given to banks — terms that included basic rules about how mortgage servicers must treat defaulting homeowners, as well as a requirement that banks look to modify mortgages before they begin foreclosure proceedings. The modifications would be paid for with $20 billion or so in penalties that would be levied on the big banks.

So, am I the only one that even finds the tongue and cheek use of “the nerve of this woman” as being particularly patronizing vision of some one who has been such a consistent, articulate, fighting voice for beleaguered consumers in a tough environment built for big time lobbyists with big time money? The point of the article is that many of the old regulators who are supposed to make sure the bank runs of the 1930s don’t recur–like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency–have become their old captured selves.  This is in firm contrast to the article’s objectified pinata.

It’s not just the House Republicans either. Already the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has reverted to form, becoming once again a captive of the banks it is supposed to regulate. (It has strenuously opposed the efforts of the A.G.’s to penalize the banks and reform the mortgage modification process, for instance.) The banks themselves act as if they have a God-given right to the profit they made precrisis, and owe the country nothing for the trouble they’ve put us all through. The Justice Department has essentially given up trying to make anyone accountable for the crisis.

So, yes, thank goodness for Ms. Warren and her fighting spirit.  We’re on to the next big thing. There’s a fresh hell called Libya and a worry for all those invested in energy company with ownership of nuclear assets.  So, bankers, you know, will be bankers.

During the subprime boom, many states tried to stop the worst lending abuses, only to be blocked by federal banking regulators. Now that the country is dealing with the aftermath of those abuses — the rising tide of defaults and foreclosures — it is the attorneys general who are, once again, put in the position of trying to stamp out abuses, this time of the foreclosure process itself.

I dare to guess that the president’s spent more time on his march madness brackets than what’s up in Warren’s office.  When Warren’s time in her interim position expires, Obama will undoubtedly let his banker friends find an acceptable banker potted plant to fill her spot.

Their leverage comes from the fact that the banks and their servicing divisions have, in the words of the University of Minnesota law professor Prentiss Cox, “routinely violated basic legal process” by, for instance, not transferring the note after the sale of a home. But in addition to assessing a financial penalty on the banks, the A.G.’s are trying to use the threat of litigation to force the banks to finally deal with defaulting homeowners more fairly and humanely. That is the essence of the settlement proposal that has been floating around. That — and a big push to finally come up with a modification plan that works.

Their leverage comes from the fact that the banks and their servicing divisions have, in the words of the University of Minnesota law professor Prentiss Cox, “routinely violated basic legal process” by, for instance, not transferring the note after the sale of a home. But in addition to assessing a financial penalty on the banks, the A.G.’s are trying to use the threat of litigation to force the banks to finally deal with defaulting homeowners more fairly and humanely. That is the essence of the settlement proposal that has been floating around. That — and a big push to finally come up with a modification plan that works.

Author Joe Nocera is clearly in awe of her too. He states that she’s by far the most qualified person for the position. She understands the ins and outs of the processes very well.

As I listened to her on Wednesday, I was struck anew at how clearly she articulates the need for the new bureau. “If there had been a cop on the beat to hold mortgage servicers accountable a half dozen years ago,” she said at one point, “the problems in mortgage servicing would have been found early and fixed while they were still small, long before they became a national scandal.”

Senate Republicans have vowed to block her appointment if President Obama nominates her. Yet even if her nomination goes down in flames, Senate confirmation hearings would be clarifying. Americans would get to hear Ms. Warren explain why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has the potential to help Americans. And they would get to hear Republicans explain why the status quo — including the everyday horror of the foreclosure mess — is just fine.

It has been much noted in recent months that President Obama seems unwilling to start a fight with Republicans. Maybe that’s why he has shied away from nominating Ms. Warren to a job for which she is so clearly suited. But if protecting financial consumers — and helping the millions of Americans struggling to hold onto their homes — isn’t worth fighting for, then what is?

The woman hardly qualifies as a noun.  She is a verb.  Elizabeth Warren fights for us.  Who will fight for her?