It really didn’t take Sen. Elizabeth Warren long to find her voice, as if anyone was concerned she wouldn’t, and now it looks like she’s using it to be the vocal leader of the move to push the Democratic agenda as far to the left as the Tea Party pulled Republicans to the right.

Both in Massachusetts and nationally, there is a void at the top of the Democratic party with little idea of who will set the table. Warren, despite her repeated denials of ambition for higher office, is emerging as the go-to person for the disenfranchised progressive base.

Warren’s latest salvo across the bow of the Washington political establishment is her urging the House Democrats to bail on the bipartisan agreement for the spending bill. Warren’s problem with it – and the problem of many on the left – is what they see as the gutting of the Dodd-Frank Act by House Speaker John Boehner.

 

Under the “cromnibus” agreement hammered out between the House and Senate leaders to keep the government afloat, Boehner tucked in a provision that would eliminate the prohibition on “swaps,” insider-speak for government guaranteed loans for risky trades. Many supporters of Dodd-Frank saw those kind of deals as leading to the global economic collapse and Warren, who rode into office railing on Wall Street and big banks, is urging fellow Democrats to abandon their support until Boehner removes the rider. She is beginning to gain some traction, with the likes of New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen answering the call. Without Democrat votes, the spending bill hasn’t got a prayer of passing later Thursday.

Notable in the growing support is the fact that Warren was aggressive in her stumping for Shaheen in her race against Scott Brown so while this may be an ideological alignment, it also shows Warren’s growing power as an emerging Democratic voice. When Democratic candidates around the country were fleeing the shadow of President Obama during the campaign season, Warren was in high demand for fundraising and gladhanding.

Warren’s impassioned plea for blocking the spending bill comes in the wake of her strident opposition to Antonio Weiss, Obama’s pick for a Treasury undersecretary position, a selection she says shows an unhealthy relationship between the White House and Wall Street and continues the “revolving door” of industry insiders being selected for regulatory positions.

Warren’s emerging profile continues to draw support from the nomadic left looking for a leader in the 2016 presidential race. At home in Massachusetts, with the impending departure of Gov. Deval Patrick, there is a question of the direction of the party. The Globe’s Scot Lehigh writes that Warren’s people have some concerns about who is leading the charge and what impact that will have on her and her fortunes for reelection, and presumptively, her national stature.

Her constant denial of presidential ambitions notwithstanding, the movement to draw her into a race against presumptive leader of the pack Hillary Clinton is growing with every sentence she utters.

The left-wing political action committee, Democracy for America, ran an online poll on presidential preference and Warren topped the list, with Clinton a distant third. (Socialist heartthrob Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont came in second with Patrick way back in the pack with about a half-percent of the vote.) The liberal-leaning Moveon.org has launched a million-dollar “Run Warren Run” campaign to induce her to change her mind.

Though her words say “No, no, no,” many think her actions say, “Hey, look me over.” She’s not quite the leader of the Democratic party yet but for a two-year freshman senator, she’s making some serious inroads on corralling the hearts and minds of the faithful. Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

—JACK SULLIVAN

BEACON HILL

A report issued by state Auditor Suzanne Bump says the state Medicaid program spent $35 million on questionable claims from immigrants who may not have been entitled to coverage for the health services.

Say hello to Bill Weld, registered State House lobbyist.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Mayor Marty Walsh taps interim Boston Redevelopment Authority director Brian Golden for the permanent appointment running the city agency.

CASINOS

George Carney, the owner of the Raynham dog racing track who lost out on a slot license earlier this year, is considering applying for the state’s third casino license in the still-open Southeast region and building it on the Brockton Fairgrounds, where he has applied to run horse racing.

OLYMPICS

Bill Littlefield, the host of NPR’s Only a Game, offers a blistering critique of the boosterism that accompanies jockeying to host Olympic games, saying “precedent guarantees their cost estimates are a lie” and that hosting games in a region is “hard on the poor and hardest on the poorest.” Joan Vennochi writes that the lack of transparency about the bid from the local group headed by local business honchos pushing Boston means the first official event of the Boston 2024 games is a “leap of faith.”

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

The deal to fund the federal government would also block passage of a measure approved by voters in the District of Columbia to legalize marijuana, Governing reports.

ELECTIONS

Karl Rove works over Hillary Clinton in his Wall Street Journal op-ed column.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Market Basket, the supermarket chain that shut down this summer as employees insisted on the return of their former boss, hands out bonuses to workers, the Lowell Sun reports.

A developer of two proposed mixed-use buildings in Quincy Center is aiming for a March groundbreaking, the first significant step in restarting the stalled $1.6 billion downtown redevelopment project that has left the city with a gaping hole in the middle of its main street.

The Dorchester Reporter takes a look at the Concord-based company that signed an agreement to buy the Boston Globe property on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester.

New York magazine examines the rise of economic policy truthers.

EDUCATION

Massachusetts receives $15 million in federal funds for pre-school expansion in Boston, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, and Springfield, the Associated Press reports.

Brockton officials are planning to file suit against the state and a officials of a proposed charter school over the decision to grant a waiver for the school to move forward in the application process.

HEALTH CARE

Boston Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center are in merger talks, the Globe reports.

TRANSPORTATION

The Fairmount Line is bringing higher rents to Boston neighborhoods where new stations have opened.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Marion officials are heading back to the drawing board to redesign the town’s wastewater treatment plant after EPA officials rejected the use of three “sewage lagoons” to handle effluent overflow.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

A regional police agency serving the Merrimack Valley is asking a state court to throw out a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts seeking records on the agency’s SWAT team, the Eagle-Tribune reports. The North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council took down its website, which contained a mission statement saying it had been created in 1963 out of a fear and distrust of civil rights advocates, antiwar activists, and city dwellers moving to Boston’s suburbs.

A Foxboro woman accused of trying to sell $1 million in phony MBTA commuter rail passes is ordered held in jail after trying to avoid a court hearing by falsely claiming she was injured in a car accident, the Salem News reports.

Nam Pham, the director of VietAID, a Dorchester agency serving the neighborhood’s large Vietnamese community, weighs in on the Mark Wahlberg pardon request.

A veteran Abington police officer who allegedly sent a former girlfriend’s teenaged daughter a sex video he recorded in his cruiser has resigned.

MEDIA

A Harvard Business School professor who has been called the “sheriff of the Internet” nearly breaks it, as the story of his demands on a Brookline Chinese restaurant over a $4 overcharge goes viral. Boston.com, which broke the story, removes from its website a follow-up piece suggesting the professor sent an email to the restaurant with racist overtones.

Edward Kosner, a former editor at Newsweek, New York and Esquire, argues in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column that print publishers “are being unhinged by the challenge of making a splash in a new world increasingly dominated by the values of digital journalism.”