WATCH DOG

Obama Will Appoint Elizabeth Warren

In advisory role to avoid lengthy Senate confirmation.

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.