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 the senior 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. Schumer is in his fifth Senate term,making him the longest-serving US senator from New York,having surpassed Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob K. Javits in 2023. 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 key ally of President Joe Biden.
Jeffrey Dunston Zients is an American business executive and government official,serving as the 31st White House chief of staff in the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden. 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 currently serves as 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.
Brandon Lamont Beach is an American politician serving as a member of the Georgia State Senate. Beach was first elected in the 2012 general election and serves Georgia's 21st district,which includes portions of Cherokee and Fulton counties.
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.
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,law professor,and lawyer who is the U.S. representative from California's 47th congressional district since 2023,previously representing the 45th congressional district from 2019 to 2023. She is the first Democrat to be elected to represent 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. Porter was reelected in 2022 in the newly redistricted 47th congressional district.
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.
Rachel Leland Levine is an American pediatrician who has served as the United States assistant secretary for health since March 26,2021. She is also an admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
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 provide more funding for hospitals and testing for COVID-19.
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 the ongoing 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.
