Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo
President Barack Obama is expected to announce that Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren will be serving in a special advisory role in the administration, reporting to both him and the Treasury Department. Warren will reportedly head the effort to start a new consumer protection agency, as she was one of the first proponents of creating a federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2007. Obama said Warren is a “tremendous advocate” for the new agency, which the president proposed in his Wall Street reform bill in July. By naming her as a special adviser, she will not have to be confirmed by the Senate. Many Republicans have painted Warren as too tough on business, and were she to face a Senate confirmation, it would have likely been a long process.