Elizabeth Warren in Fight With Big Banks Over Seat on Senate Banking Committee

Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren hasn't even begun her congressional tenure, but big banks and the financial industry are already afraid, and they're ready for a fight.

Two years ago, Warren created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new government agency tasked with protecting the public from unregulated financial products and shady mortgages.

Senate Republicans and their finance industry backers kept her from being nominated to head that agency, a decision they likely regret now that she joins her opponents in a much more powerful position.

But opposition may still be fierce.

The financial industry gave $5.5 million dollars to Warren's opponent to defeat her, donations that were ultimately futile. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an official-sounding business lobbying group, said, "no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren."

Christopher Whalen, a senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners, said, "Liz Warren is only one of 100 senators, thank God. She's kind of an angry Calvinist."

Big banks are already attempting to find ways to keep her off the Senate Banking Committee, which has two open Democratic seats.

"There are many bank lobbyists pushing to keep her off," a Democratic Senate aide told Politico. "If she really wants banking, it will be very tough politically to keep her off."

For her part, Warren seems to be adapting to the more staid and diplomatic tone of the Senate, without compromising on her goals, a technique she worked on even before her election.

During a debate with opponent Scott Brown, she referenced a "balanced approach" to reducing the deficit, which in Washington usually means a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts that leaves everyone unhappy. Instead, she stuck to her progressive guns.

"It's going to take a balanced approach," she said. "I believe we need to make cuts, we need to make cuts to agriculture subsidies. We need to make cuts in our defense budget, targeted cuts. We need to end the war in Afghanistan, that's $2 billion a week. We need to cut fraud and abuse out of the system. But we also need to ask others to pay their fair share. I believe that billionaires should pay taxes at least at the same rate that their secretaries do."

Whether Warren gets a seat on the banking committee is up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but as Reid is an ally of Warren, it seems likely that the big banks will have another powerful senator keeping her eye on them.