Warren writes: "When I'm sworn in just a couple of months from now, I want to fight for jobs for people who want to work...And I want to hold Wall Street accountable."
Elizabeth Warren speaks to reporters during a news conference, 05/02/12. (photo: Steven Senne/AP)
The First Week in January
16 November 12
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'm honored to serve the people of Massachusetts in the United States Senate, and I'm grateful for everything you've done to help send me to Washington.
When I'm sworn in just a couple of months from now, I want to fight for jobs for people who want to work. I want millionaires and billionaires and Big Oil companies to pay their fair share. And I want to hold Wall Street accountable.
But here's the honest truth: we'll never do any of that if we can't get up-or-down votes in the Senate.
Remember Jimmy Stewart's classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? I love that movie. That's what most of us think of when we hear the word "filibuster" - a single passionate senator speaking for hours about legislation they fiercely oppose until they literally collapse with exhaustion.
But that's not what today's filibuster looks like. In reality, any senator can make a phone call, say they object to a bill, then head out for the night. In the meantime, business comes to a screeching halt.
Senate Republicans have used this type of filibuster 380 times since the Democrats took over the majority in 2006. We've seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies - you name it, there's been a filibuster.
We've seen filibusters of bills and nominations that ultimately passed with 90 or more votes. Why filibuster something that has that kind of support? Just to slow down the process and keep the Senate from working.
I saw the impact of these filibusters at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Forty-five senators pledged to filibuster any nominee to head that new consumer agency, regardless of that person's qualifications. After I left the agency, they tried to hold Richard Cordray's nomination vote hostage until the Senate agreed to weaken the agency to the point where it could no longer hold the big banks and credit card companies accountable.
That's not open debate - that's paralyzing progress.
I learned something important in my race against Senator Brown: voters want political leaders who are willing to break the partisan gridlock. They want fewer closed-door roadblocks and more public votes on legislation that could improve their lives.
On the first day of the new session in January, the senators will have a unique opportunity to change the filibuster rule with a majority vote, rather than the normal two-thirds vote. The change can be modest: If someone objects to a bill or a nomination in the United States Senate, they should have to stand on the floor of the chamber and defend their opposition.
I'm joining Senator Jeff Merkley and six other newly elected senators to pledge to lead this reform on Day One, and I hope you'll be right there with us. Our campaign didn't end on Election Day - and I'm counting on you to keep on working each and every day to bring real change for working families. This is the first step.
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The 2000 presidential election where G.W. Bush (with the help of his brother, Jeb Bush) and the Republican Party openly stole the presidency should have been a major wake-up call.
You had the phony felon list produced by a data-base company at the behest of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris in Florida illegally nullifying the voting rights of almost 90,000 Afro-Americans. You had the police in Florida strategically stationed at minority polling precincts harassing and threatening minority voters attempting to enter the polling precincts to vote, and these were just some of the voter suppression techniques used by Jeb Bush to steal Florida from Al Gore.
The NAACP at the time took both Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris to court, mainly on the phony felon database, and the NAACP won. The NAACP held a huge towhhall meeting in which it investigated all of the illegalities that took place that voting day with hundreds of witnesses giving testimony.
So, one might ask the question as to what all was accomplished from this then and now. The answer is simply nothing. The 2000 election in Florida should have been nullified and held again, but it wasn't, and Al Gore should've fought the illegal decision made by SCOTUS to stop the Florida recount, but he didn't. HAVA was then passed when Bush was president and now we're all screwed.
After all the world has changed around them but they still live and hang out in Washington DC.
Please note that the work work does not appear in the previous statement.
Washington and the ruling elite has no interest in anything other than keeping you marginalized.