Warren Has No Plans to Release Older Tax Files: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Warren said Monday that she has no plans to release her tax returns covering her work as a law professor and bankruptcy lawyer before she entered public service in 2008.

The Massachusetts senator said she has disclosed 11 years of tax returns on her website, exceeding what she said was President Barack Obama’s practice of making eight years of records available. The returns cover her work on the congressional oversight panel in charge of overseeing the bank bailout of 2008, her time setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Obama administration and her tenure as a senator, starting in 2013.

The records don’t include her returns from work before 2008, when she was in the private sector while a law professor, in many cases representing large corporations.

“I believe that this should be a matter of law, and my plan is to follow the same practice that was set up by Barack Obama,” Warren told reporters in West Des Moines, Iowa, in response to a question about whether she would disclose older tax returns. “I think anyone who runs for president should have to meet the same rule and that would be the eight-year rule. I’m already well past that.”

President Donald Trump has refused to disclose his tax returns, which has become a frequent campaign topic for the Democratic contenders. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has released 10 years of tax returns. Former Vice President Joe Biden has released 21 years of tax returns including making those starting in 2016 available on his website. Pete Buttigieg has released his tax returns back to 2007, when he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co.

Warren has proposed passing a law that would require presidential candidates to disclose at least eight years of tax returns as part of her anti-corruption bill.

Sanders Calls Out Major League Baseball (4:23 p.m.)

Bernie Sanders is crying foul over a proposal from owners of Major League Baseball franchises to close 42 Minor League teams in more than three dozen cities, a 25% cut that the Democratic presidential contender says would be “an absolute disaster for baseball fans.”

In a letter Monday to Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, Sanders urged a rethinking of the plan that he says would hurt lower-paid players and deprive families in small and mid-sized cities of a chance to partake of the sport at a time when major team owners are “making record-breaking profits.”

“Not only would your extreme proposal destroy thousands of jobs and devastate local economies, it would be terrible for baseball,” Sanders wrote to Manfred. The Vermont senator pointed out the proposal came less than three months after an appellate court ruled Minor League Baseball players could move ahead with a class action lawsuit seeking better pay.

The proposal is part of efforts to change the contract between Major League Baseball and Minor League teams that expires after the 2020 season. Major League Baseball has said a reorganization is needed to make the minor leagues more efficient and to improve facilities, but officials associated with the targeted teams see it as a potential crisis for their operations. -- Laura Litvan

Warren Takes Fresh Swipe at Bloomberg Spending (2:58 p.m.)

Elizabeth Warren said Michael Bloomberg is betting he only needs “bags and bags of money” to win the Democratic nomination.

Speaking at a community event in Ankeny, Iowa, on Monday, Warren criticized the former New York mayor’s approach to the 2020 campaign. Bloomberg entered the race on Sunday, months later than most of the other candidates. He is spending $37 million so far on campaign advertising, $100 million on anti-Trump issue ads and another $15 million to $20 million on voter-registration efforts in key states. He is taking no outside donations.

Bloomberg hasn’t said how much he will devote to the campaign but spokesman Jason Schechter said he will “spend what’s needed.”

“His view is that he doesn’t need people who knock on doors. He doesn’t need to go out and campaign, people. He doesn’t need volunteers. And if you get out and knock on 1,000 doors he’ll just spend another $37 million to flood the airwaves and that’s how he plans to buy a nomination in the Democratic Party. I think that is fundamentally wrong,” she said.

Bloomberg campaigned Monday in Norfolk, Virginia, visiting a coffee shop and holding a news conference.

Asked what his message was to fellow Democrats, he said, “They’ve got to worry about themselves. I’ve just got to worry about myself, and what I care about in America is getting rid of Donald Trump” and gun violence, climate change and creating jobs.

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. -- Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

Harris Releases Mental Health Treatment Plan (1:55 p.m.)

Kamala Harris on Monday unveiled a mental health plan to increase access to help through telemedicine, double the number of treatment beds and double the Department of Veterans Affairs research budget.

Harris’s proposal builds off of her Medicare for All plan. Patients would not be charged a deductible or copay for telemedicine treatment, counseling provided over the phone or video. The plan calls for states with shortages on treatment beds, such as Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan, to be prioritized.

Other candidates, including Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, have proposed their own plans to address mental health and increase access to treatment.

Harris will introduce her plan at an event in Berkeley County, South Carolina, alongside Charlamagne tha God, the co-host of the nationally syndicated Breakfast Club radio show and an advocate for mental health resources. -- Emma Kinery

Biden Is Endorsed by Nevada Congresswoman Titus (9:22 a.m.)

Democratic Representative Dina Titus has backed Joe Biden for president, the first endorsement by a prominent elected official from Nevada, which holds its primary Feb. 22.

Titus called Biden the “best-qualified candidate” and touted his positions on health care, the environment and gun control in an interview with CNN on Monday. Titus’s district includes Las Vegas and the site of the 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people.

Titus predicted Biden would have the best chance of beating President Donald Trump. She introduced Biden at a campaign event in Las Vegas in July as “somebody who has always been in the trenches with us and for us.” -- Cailin Webber

COMING UP

Biden will embark on an eight-day, 18 county bus tour of Iowa from Nov. 30 to Dec. 7.

--With assistance from Caitlin Webber, Emma Kinery, Mark Niquette, Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou and Laura Litvan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney

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