WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren called Tuesday for sweeping anti-corruption laws in Washington, including a lifetime ban on presidents, members of Congress and other officeholders from working as lobbyists. But even as she assailed members of President Trump’s administration, the Massachusetts Democrat refused to confirm or rule out her own run for president.
“I am not running for president in 2020,” Warren told the National Press Club. “I’m running for the Senate in 2018.”
But it was clear that Warren’s pitch was a salvo in defining what she wants the party to stand for when Democrats nationally are struggling to find a leader and a message beyond their hostility toward Trump. Ahead stand the November midterm elections in which Trump and the Republicans are defending their majorities in the House and Senate. The 2020 presidential race effectively begins after that. The two have been trading long-distance barbs for years. She, a former Harvard law professor, calls him a bully. He, a real estate magnate and former reality star, nicknamed her “Pocahontas” for saying she’s got Native American ancestry.
It’s far from clear that Warren has a viable constituency outside Massachusetts, or that her legislation has much support in the Senate.
The proposal would impose a lifetime ban on lobbying across senior levels of all three branches of government, starting with presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges and Cabinet secretaries. It would also ban other federal employees from lobbying their former office, department, house of Congress or agency for years.
Current lobbyists, meanwhile, would be barred from taking government jobs for extended periods of time after lobbying. She also would force federal appellate courts to livestream audio of their proceedings and establish an independent office of public integrity that would have new investigative and disciplinary powers.
Like other potential presidential candidates, Warren is traveling the country campaigning for Democrats running in 2018 even as she runs for her own second term.
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