
Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenExclusive: How Obama went to bat for Warren Minimum wage setback revives progressive calls to nix Senate filibuster Democratic strategists start women-run media consulting firm MORE (D-Mass.) has thrust anti-big bank policy into the 2016 presidential Democratic primary, presenting a new political challenge for front-runner Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonMedia circles wagons for conspiracy theorist Neera Tanden The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by The AIDS Institute - Senate ref axes minimum wage, House votes today on relief bill Democratic strategists start women-run media consulting firm MORE.
Warren's re-introduction on Tuesday of Glass-Steagall, which would require big banks to split up commercial and investment banking, is popular among the liberal base.
Proponents contend that former President Clinton's repeal of the legislation in 1999 was part of deregulation that contributed to the 2008 economic collapse, an allegation that many economists — and the Clintons — vehemently dispute.

One of the eight senators who voted against was Bernie Sanders

"It's essential in preventing another crash," O'Malley tweeted earlier Tuesday, while thanking the bill's other co-sponsors: Sens. John McCain



"If that law hadn’t been repealed in 1999, the crash would have been contained," O'Malley wrote in a March 2015 op-ed for The Des Moines Register.
For liberals who are already wary of Clinton's ties to Wall Street, Warren's reintroduction of the bill could bring the issue to the campaign trail, even though the bill itself has virtually no chance of becoming law this Congress.
It gives her challengers an issue showing daylight between themselves and the Clinton, who retains a formidable lead in the polls, despite Sanders’s rise.
Robert Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign For America's Future, praised Sanders and O'Malley for supporting Glass-Steagall.
"We don't know where Hillary stands. Understandably she's reluctant to choose between her donors and the activists base of the party," Borosage said. "But just as with the trade debate, silence speaks loudly. You can't be a 'champion of everyday people' and duck taking a stand on fundamental challenges facing the country."
But Tony Fratto, a partner at the D.C.-based business consulting firm Hamilton Place Strategies, dubbed the bill "irrelevant."
"It went nowhere before and it's going nowhere again. It's hard to take seriously a proposal that Senator Warren herself concedes would not have prevented the crisis," Fratto said.
Still financial reformers heralded the legislation.
"Wall Street reform should be among the economic populist issues at the center of the 2016 debate, we hope to see bold proposals from presidential, Senate and House candidates," said Green, who is pushing for Democratic candidates to adopt a more progressive agenda, similar to Warren's.
Top policymakers at the Federal Reserve have argued that Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented the 2008 crisis and that its re-introduction would not prevent "too big to fail" financial institutions from receiving taxpayer bailouts.
Warren's re-introduction of the legislation illustrates the grassroots disdain for the taxpayer bailouts from the crisis that still exists seven years after the collapse.
"Despite the progress we've made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy," Warren said in a statement. "The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will … make our financial system more stable and secure.”
Warren has been reluctant to praise Clinton so far this election cycle. In contrast, she lauded Sanders in an interview last month with The Boston Herald.
"Bernie's out talking about the issues that the American people want to hear about," she told The Herald. "I love what Bernie is talking about. I think all the presidential candidates should be out talking about the big issues."
— This story was updated at 6:24 p.m.