Inbox:
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Democratic Leader
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Assistant Democratic Leader
Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Conference Vice Chair and DPCC Chair
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Democratic Conference Secretary
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), DPCC Vice Chair
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee Chair
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Strategic Policy Advisor to the DPCC
…
“I’m grateful to Leader Reid and Senator Schumer for offering me a seat at the table in leadership,” said Senator Warren. “While the stock market rises and CEOs rake in millions more each year, working families keep getting left behind as they struggle to pay the bills and build economic security. We need to make government work for all of our families, and I’m glad to join my colleagues in that fight.”
This is good news any way you slice it. As a member of the leadership team, Senator Warren will have inside-the-building clout to go along with the outside-the-building clout she’s been developing ever since she announced she was running for Senate. The Globe elaborates:
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday was given a new role in Senate Democratic leadership, elevating her profile inside the Senate with a newly-created position as liaison to liberal groups.
The new position — strategic policy adviser to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee — cements her role as the most prominent conduit to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It’s not exactly a new role for the Massachusetts Democrat, but it means that she will now do officially what she has done unofficially over the past two years….
“Being part of leadership means I’ve got a seat at the table,” Warren said in a brief interview. It “creates an opportunity to talk, to persuade and sometimes to lead.”
Warren’s selection is an indication that Senate Democrats want to give more weight to the liberal portions of the party — rather than elevating moderates — just after they experienced a drubbing in the midterm elections.
For Warren — someone who has always cast herself as an outsider willing to shake up the political establishment — it means she will take on an insider position just two years after being elected.
Warren will now attend weekly Tuesday morning leadership meetings with a handful of other senators, where they will make strategy decisions and discuss policy proposals.
“She’ll be involved in many more leadership discussions and meetings, so it is a significant role,” said one top Democratic Senate aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “She of course reaches out to the groups and connects with them, but now she’ll be plugged directly in with the leadership.”
Brava, Senator. Here’s to continued success in defining what the conversation should actually be about.
I hate to say it, but just adding Warren doesn’t make the leadership team new. Sadly, the Democrats who think Harry Reid is ineffective as Majority Leader are all Conservative.
Any statement that purports to speak for all of a group is inevitable an overstatement.
It’s by no means only conservatives who think Reid has been ineffective.
It’s good news that Warren has this appointment, but it’s telling that the leadership thinks it needs a “liaison to liberal groups.” Those groups ought to be the party’s constituency, and crap like pushing for the Keystone pipeline to try and save a conservative Democrat should just not happen.
Meant to, but didn’t. Edit function still an empty promise.