From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON – After campaigning last year as an outspoken consumer advocate and Wall Street critic, Senator Elizabeth Warren was surprisingly quiet during her first month on Capitol Hill. But that changed Thursday at the Massachusetts senior senator’s first hearing, when she rebuked federal regulators for settling civil cases with big banks instead of taking them to trial.

Looking at the seven regulators arrayed before the Senate Banking Committee, and noting that she had often sat at the same witness table before becoming a senator, she used her new power to question why the federal government has not been more aggressive.

“The question I really want to ask is about how tough you are – about how much leverage you really have,” Warren said. “Tell me a little bit about the last few times you’ve taken the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street all the way to trial.”

A handful of supporters in the packed hearing room applauded. But none of the witnesses – representing the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and others – offered a response.

“Anybody?” Warren asked, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows above her glasses.

…

Warren seized the hearing to chide regulators for not taking legal stands against Wall Street, saying that the threat of trial is an important tool in keeping big banks in line, despite the vast resources required to do so.

“If a party is unwilling to go to trial — either because they’re too timid or they lack resources — the consequence is they have a lot less leverage,” Warren said. “If [banks] can break the law and drag in billions in profits and then turn around and settle paying out of those profits, they don’t have that much incentive to follow the law.”

…

Off to a good start I’d say.

A brief story:  I still have a Warren bumpersticker on my car.  Someone came up to me the other day to say how happy he was she’s our senator – just saw my bumpersticker and decided to introduce himself.  Said he’d heard her on the radio ca 2008 talking about the lack of transparency in common financial agreements, such as credit card applications.   As a reality check on just how transparent/opaque such agreements are, she took a class of third year law students, had them read a credit card application, and then gave them a one question quiz, “What’s the interest rate?”  Apparently a large fraction failed.  (That’s nuts.)  Upon hearing the story he told himself, “She gets it.”  He ended up volunteering for her campaign last fall.   Anyhow, I was glad he introduced himself and appreciated hearing the story.

UPDATE:  Here’s the video of Senator Warren in action!