Elizabeth Ann Warren is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts,serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as a progressive,Warren has focused on consumer protection,equitable economic opportunity,and the social safety net while in the Senate. Warren was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries,ultimately finishing third.
Charles Ellis Schumer is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since 2021 and as a United States senator from New York since 1999. A member of the Democratic Party,he has led the Senate Democratic Caucus since 2017 and was Senate Minority Leader from 2017 to 2021. He became New York's senior senator in 2001,on the retirement of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Elected to a fifth Senate term in 2022,Schumer surpassed Moynihan and Jacob K. Javits as the longest-serving U.S. senator from New York. He is the dean of New York's congressional delegation.
Edward Emmett Kaufman is a retired American politician and businessman who served as a United States senator from Delaware from 2009 to 2010. He chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program;he was the second and final person to hold the position,succeeding Elizabeth Warren. Kaufman is a member of the Democratic Party and a key ally of President Joe Biden.
Jeffrey Dunston Zients is an American business executive and a government official in the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden. Zients is currently serving as the 31st White House chief of staff. Earlier in the Biden administration,he served as counselor to the president and White House coronavirus response coordinator from January 2021 to April 2022.
Andrew M. Slavitt is an American businessman and healthcare advisor who served as the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from March 2015 to January 2017 and as a temporary Senior Advisor to the COVID-19 Response Coordinator in the Biden administration. A leader of the team that helped to repair the healthcare.gov website after its initial rollout,he was nominated by Barack Obama to run CMS in July 2015. In January 2021,Slavitt accepted a temporary role as Senior Pandemic Advisor to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 pandemic response team. He stepped down from that role in June 2021.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy III is an American politician and diplomat who has been the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland since 2022. Prior to this,Kennedy served as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district from 2013 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party,he represented a district that extends from Boston's western suburbs to the state's South Coast. He worked as an assistant district attorney in the Cape and Islands and Middlesex County,Massachusetts,offices before his election to Congress. In January 2021,he became a CNN commentator.
James French Hill is an American businessman and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Arkansas's 2nd congressional district since 2015. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Kara Marlene Stein is an American attorney who currently serves as a board member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board,known as PCAOB. She was sworn in on November 18,2021,and her current term is scheduled to end on October 24,2026.
Subramanian Raja Krishnamoorthi is an American businessman,politician,and attorney serving as the U.S. representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2017. The district includes many of Chicago's western and northwestern suburbs,such as Hoffman Estates,Elgin,Schaumburg,Wood Dale,and Elk Grove Village. A member of the Democratic Party,Krishnamoorthi serves as the Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party,the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability,and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Rohit Chopra is an American consumer advocate who is the third director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and previous member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Prior to this,Chopra served as assistant director of the CFPB and as the agency's first Student Loan Ombudsman,an office created by the Dodd–Frank Act.
Katherine Moore Porter is an American politician and lawyer who has been the U.S. representative from California's 47th congressional district since 2023,previously representing the 45th congressional district from 2019 to 2023. She was elected as part of a Democratic wave in Orange County flipping the 45th district,covering much of south-central Orange County,including Irvine,Tustin,and Lake Forest along with large portions of Anaheim and Laguna Niguel. In 2022,she was reelected in the 47th congressional district following redistricting. In 2023,Porter announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate,foregoing reelection to the House of Representatives. She was defeated after failing to advance from the nonpartisan primary won by Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey.
Events in 2020 pertaining to politics and government in the United States.
The Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act,2020 is an act of Congress enacted on March 6,2020. The legislation provided emergency supplemental appropriations of $8.3 billion in fiscal year 2020 to combat the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and counter the COVID-19 pandemic,particularly the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The legislation passed the House 415–2 on March 4 and the Senate 96–1 on March 5,2020. The legislation received broad bipartisan support.
The Coronavirus Aid,Relief,and Economic Security Act,also known as the CARES Act,is a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27,2020,in response to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The spending primarily includes $300 billion in one-time cash payments to individual people who submit a tax return in America,$260 billion in increased unemployment benefits,the creation of the Paycheck Protection Program that provides forgivable loans to small businesses with an initial $350 billion in funding,$500 billion in loans for corporations,and $339.8 billion to state and local governments.
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is an independent oversight committee within the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency,created by the Coronavirus Aid,Relief,and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 to ensure that the $2.2 trillion of the CARES act,plus 5 other pandemic-related pieces of legislation totaling over $5 trillion in government funds,were not misspent.
The Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) is an Inspector General position created by the Coronavirus Aid,Relief,and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 to oversee spending of government funds in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The position was included at the insistence of congressional Democrats. The SIGPR is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission (COC) is an oversight body in the United States created by the CARES Act. They will report to Congress every 30 days on how the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board manage the funds until September 30,2025. These reports will assess:
Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act is a $484 billion law that increases funding to the Paycheck Protection Program and also provides more funding for hospitals and testing for COVID-19.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act,2021 is a $2.3 trillion spending bill that combines $900 billion in stimulus relief for the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States with a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill for the 2021 federal fiscal year and prevents a government shutdown. The bill is one of the largest spending measures ever enacted,surpassing the $2.2 trillion CARES Act,enacted in March 2020. The legislation is the first bill to address the pandemic since April 2020. According to the Senate Historical Office,at 5,593 pages,the legislation is the longest bill ever passed by Congress.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or American Rescue Plan,is a US$1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11,2021,to speed up the country's recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession. First proposed on January 14,2021,the package builds upon many of the measures in the CARES Act from March 2020 and in the Consolidated Appropriations Act,2021,from December.
