Elizabeth Warren, Angus King among freshmen in Senate ‘millionaires’ club’

Several new faces in the Senate are in the upper chamber’s “millionaires’ club,” according to new financial disclosure reports posted online Wednesday.
 
Some of the freshmen senators elected in 2012 are multi-millionaires, holding hundreds of thousands of dollars in money-market funds, savings accounts, retirement plans — even Caribbean vacation property.
 
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was worth at least $3.9 million in 2012, according to her financial disclosure report released on Wednesday. Warren reported holding several TIAA-CREF assets, including one holding worth at least $1 million.
 
Warren listed one liability: an education loan to Harvard University worth at least $15,000.

{mosads}The former Harvard Law School professor has an agreement with the school to hold the honorary title of emeritus professor as well as the use of storage space for “teaching and research materials,” according to Warren’s 2012 report. Warren also earned a $4,000 salary and $59,417 in royalties from Aspen Publishers last year.
 
Newly elected Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) also reported wealth in the millions of dollars for 2012. The former governor of Maine had a minimum net worth of $5.7 million last year.
 
Along with several holdings in market funds and IRAs, King also has choice real estate with his wife, including a $250,000 share in a St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, vacation rental property. The independent senator also listed a few liabilities, including some mortgages valued at least $100,000 each.
 

Last year, King also picked up a $10,140 salary from Bowdoin College; consulting fees worth $22,500 from law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson; and a $225,000 executor commission from the Estate of Roger C. Kline.
 
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) also fared well in 2012, reporting a minimum net worth of more than $1.9 million.
 
The former state attorney general has several joint holdings with her husband in some top-line companies, like Boeing, Harley Davidson, Pfizer and Intel. Heitkamp’s spouse also owns some land in Stutsman County, N.D., worth at least $15,000.
 
For 2012, the North Dakota Democrat took in a $12,000 salary from Heidi Heitkamp Inc. She also earned $23,910 in “non-employee compensation” from the Dakota Gasification Company.
 
Heitkamp listed no liabilities for last year.
 
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a former state senator elected to Congress last year, reported holding $2.2 million in assets for 2012. That includes at least $1 million each in stock shares in Nebraska’s Sunny Slope Ranch for Fischer and her husband.
 
Fischer also reported some big liabilities, including one owed by the ranch to Cedar Rapids State Bank valued at least $1 million. That debt and others helped bring Fischer’s total wealth down to $381,000. 
 
The lawmakers’ reports don’t list exact value for lawmakers’ assets and liabilities. They only give an estimate of a lawmaker’s wealth by sharing value ranges.
 
The Hill uses the low number in each value range of their assets and liabilities to come up with a lawmaker’s minimum net worth. The sum of a lawmaker’s liabilities is then subtracted from the sum of their assets to calculate a conservative estimate of their wealth.