Wednesday, 20 Nov 2024

Elizabeth Warren Disclosure Forms Show $300,000 Book Advance, Other Assets

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat running for president, received a $300,000 book advance for her latest book, “This Fight is Our Fight,” according to financial disclosure forms filed with federal elections officials on Tuesday.

Other than the book advance, the forms paint a similar picture of Ms. Warren’s finances as her previous publicly available financial statements. While the senator has shaped her political brand around fighting unrestrained capitalism and reining in wealth inequality, she remains fairly wealthy herself: Her combined assets with her husband, reported through a variety of ordinary investment accounts, range between about $4 million and $11 million. Ms. Warren has between $500,000 and $1 million in a real estate investment.

The documents also showed Ms. Warren retained her title as “emeritus professor” at Harvard Law School, where she was a professor before entering public office. Ms. Warren reported no debts.

Ms. Warren’s personal wealth places her well behind several other senators in terms of personal wealth, though Roll Call ranked her as the 69th wealthiest member of Congress a year ago.

Members of Congress tend to be far wealthier than the average American, and Ms. Warren is the first presidential hopeful to swiftly release her personal financial disclosure. Ethics rules require presidential candidates to release the financial disclosures within weeks of announcing their candidacy, though candidates are also allowed to ask for an extension (Texas Democrat Julian Castro already has).

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Like Ms. Warren, other Democratic contenders have pledged to be similarly transparent throughout the nomination process — in part because they want to draw sharp contrasts with President Trump. Mr. Trump has released his personal financial disclosure form, but a large portion of his financial history remains unknown. Unlike every other president in modern history, he has refused to release his tax returns.

Ms. Warren’s financial disclosure forms were first reported by The Center for Public Integrity in Washington. She has released ten years of tax returns on her website, stretching back to her first year in public office.

In those forms, Ms. Warren and her husband reported an adjusted gross income of $913,000. The returns listed their total tax as about $268,000 and their total tax payments as $302,227. They were eligible for a refund of $34,000.

On the campaign trail, Ms. Warren frequently mentions her transparency regarding tax returns, and her policy proposal called the “Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act,” which would, among other things, require all candidates for federal office to release their taxes before taking office. That same proposal would “end lobbying as we know it,” Ms. Warren says, by eliminating foreign lobbying, ban stock trading from members of Congress, and not allow individuals to frequently rotate between public service jobs and lobbying firms.

She has made “corruption” a central theme of her presidential message.

“It is an America right now who works for the rich and powerful. And we need to call it out for what it is: corruption pure and simple,” Ms. Warren said in Iowa. “What’s happening to opportunity in this country? Why is the path so rocky for many — and why is it so much rockier for people of color?”

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