Bernie Sanders

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is the junior United States Senator from Vermont, elected on November 7, 2006. Before becoming Senator, Sanders represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives for 16 years. Sanders also served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont from 1981 through 1989.

Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist,[1] [2] and has praised European social democracy, but because he does not belong to a formal political party, he appears as an independent on the ballot. He is the first person elected to the U.S. Senate to identify as a socialist.[3] Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments. He was also the only independent member of the House during much of his service there. He is one of two independent Senators in the 111th Congress, along with Joe Lieberman.

Sanders, the son of Jewish Polish immigrants to the United States, was born in Brooklyn. He graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn and later attended the University of Chicago, graduating with a B.A. in political science in 1964.[4] After graduating from college, Sanders spent time on an Israeli kibbutz, an experience which shaped his political views.[5] In 1964, Sanders moved to Vermont, where he worked as a carpenter and journalist.[4]

Sanders's political career began in 1971, when he joined the anti-Vietnam War Liberty Union Party in Vermont. Sanders was an unsuccessful Liberty Union candidate for election to the Senate in 1972 and 1974, as well as for governor of Vermont in 1972 and 1976. In his initial campaign, Sanders received only 2% of the vote, but his subsequent races for Senate and Governor were slightly more successful, his highest vote tally being 6%.

In 1979, Sanders resigned from the Liberty Union party and worked as a writer and the director of the non-profit American People's Historical Society. In 1981, at the suggestion of his friend Richard Sugarman, a religion professor at the University of Vermont, Sanders ran for mayor of Burlington and defeated six-term Democratic incumbent Gordon Paquette by 12 votes, in a four-way contest. (An independent candidate, Richard Bove, split the Democratic vote after losing the primary to Paquette).

Increasingly popular because of his successful revitalization of Burlington's downtown area, Sanders won three more terms, defeating both Democratic and Republican candidates. In his last run for mayor, in 1987, he defeated a candidate endorsed by both major parties.

During Sanders' first term, his supporters formed the Progressive Coalition, forerunner of the Vermont Progressive Party. The Progressives never held more than six seats on the 13-member city council, but held enough votes to keep the council from overriding Sanders's vetoes. Under Sanders, Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing. His administration also sued the local cable television provider, and won considerably reduced rates and a substantial cash settlement.

Sanders ran for governor for the third time in 1986. He finished third with 14.5% of the vote – enough to deny incumbent Democrat Madeleine Kunin a majority; she was then elected by the state legislature pursuant to Vermont law. In 1988, when six-term incumbent Representative Jim Jeffords made a successful run for the Senate, Sanders ran for Jeffords's vacated seat in the House. Sanders narrowly lost to Peter P. Smith, the former lieutenant governor and the 1986 Republican candidate for governor. Sanders again ran against Smith in 1990. In an upset, he took 56% of the vote and defeated Smith by 16 points, becoming the first independent member of the House since 1950.

Sanders taught at Harvard University in 1989 and Hamilton College in 1991.

Representative
Sanders in 2006Although relations between Sanders and House Democratic leadership were not always smooth, the Democrats never actively campaigned against Sanders after his first run for Congress as an independent. While Democratic candidates ran against him in every election except 1994 (when Sanders managed to win the Democrats' endorsement), they received little financial support[citation needed].

Sanders was reelected seven times and was the longest-serving independent member of the House. Despite his independent status, he faced only one difficult contest. It came in 1994, in the midst of the Republican Revolution that swept Republicans into control of the Congress. In a year when many marginal seats fell to Republicans, Sanders managed a narrow three-point victory. In every other election, he has won at least 55% of the vote. In his last House campaign in 2004, Sanders took 69% to Republican Greg Parke's 24% and Democrat Larry Drown's 7%[citation needed].

Sanders's lifetime legislative score from the AFL-CIO is 100%. As of 2006, he has a grade of "C-" from the National Rifle Association (NRA). Sanders voted against the Brady Bill and in favor of an NRA-supported bill to restrict lawsuits against gun manufacturers in 2005.[6] Sanders voted to abolish the so-called "marriage penalty" for taxes and also voted for a bill that sought to ban human cloning. Sanders has endorsed every Democratic nominee for president of the United States since 1992. Sanders is a co-founder of the House Progressive Caucus and chaired the grouping of mostly liberal Democrats for its first eight years[citation needed].

Sanders voted against both resolutions authorizing the use of force against Iraq in 1991 and 2002, and opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he later joined almost all of his colleagues in voting for a non-binding resolution expressing support for U.S. troops at the outset of the invasion, although he gave a floor speech criticizing the partisan nature of the resolution and the Bush administration's actions in the run-up to the war. In relation to the leak investigation involving Valerie Plame, on April 7, 2006, Sanders said, "The revelation that the president authorized the release of classified information in order to discredit an Iraq war critic should tell every member of Congress that the time is now for a serious investigation of how we got into the war in Iraq, and why Congress can no longer act as a rubber stamp for the president."[7] Sanders supports universal health care and opposes what he terms "unfettered" free trade,[8] which he argues deprives American workers of their jobs while exploiting foreign workers in sweatshop factories.

In June 2005, Sanders proposed an amendment to limit provisions that allow the government to obtain individuals' library and book-buying records. The amendment passed the House by a bipartisan majority, but was removed on November 4 that year by House-Senate negotiators, and never became law.[9] Sanders followed this vote on November 5, 2005, by voting against the Online Freedom of Speech Act, which would have exempted the Internet from the restrictions of the McCain-Feingold Bill.

In March 2006, after a series of resolutions calling for him to bring articles of impeachment against the president passed in various towns in Vermont, Sanders stated it would be impractical to impeach George W. Bush, given the "reality that the Republicans control the House and the Senate." Still, Sanders made no secret of his opposition to the Bush Administration, which he regularly attacked for cuts in social programs he supports.[10] [11] [12]

Sanders has also criticized Alan Greenspan. In June 2003, during a question-and-answer discussion with the then-Federal Reserve chairman, Sanders told Greenspan that he was concerned that Greenspan was "way out of touch" and "that you see your major function in your position as the need to represent the wealthy and large corporations."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12">[13] Senator Sanders has maintained and warned 10 years ago that investment banks and commercial banks should remain as two separate entities.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13">[14]

Republicans have attacked Sanders as "an ineffective extremist" for passing only one law and fifteen amendments in his eight terms in the House.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14">[15] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15">[16] Sanders responded by saying that he had passed "the most floor amendments of any member of the House since 1996."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16">[17] Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean has stated that "Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17">[18]

Senate campaign
Main article: United States Senate election in Vermont, 2006Sanders had mentioned on several occasions that he would run for the Senate if Jeffords (with whom he has a longstanding friendship) were ever to retire, and entered the race on April 21, 2005, following Jeffords's announcement that he would not seek a fourth term. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, endorsed Sanders; Schumer's backing was critical, as it meant that any Democrat running against Sanders could not expect to receive any significant financial help on a national level.

Sanders was also endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, and Democratic National Committee chairman and former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Dean said in May 2005 that he considered Sanders an ally who votes with House Democrats. Sen. Barack Obama also campaigned for Sanders in Vermont. Sanders entered into an agreement with the Democratic Party to be listed in their primary but to decline the nomination should he win, which he did easily.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18">[19]

Speculation abounded that the state's popular Republican governor, Jim Douglas, would enter the race as well. Many pundits believed Douglas was the only Republican who could possibly defeat Sanders. However, on April 30, Douglas announced he would seek a third term as governor. In the view of many pundits, this effectively handed the open seat to Sanders.

Sen. Sanders consistently led his Republican challenger, businessman Richard Tarrant, by wide margins in polling. In the most expensive political campaign in Vermont's history,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-BGlobe-110706_19-0">[20] Sanders defeated Tarrant by an approximately 2-to-1 margin in the 2006 midterm election. Many national media outlets (including CNN) projected Sanders the winner before any returns came in.

Sanders is only the third Senator from Vermont to caucus with the Democrats — following Jeffords and Patrick Leahy. He made a deal with the Democratic leadership similar to the one Jeffords made after Jeffords became an independent. In exchange for receiving the committee seats that would be available to him as a Democrat, Sanders votes with the Democrats on all procedural matters unless he asks permission of Majority Whip Richard Durbin. However, such a request is almost never made and is almost never granted. He is free to vote as he pleases on policy matters, but almost always votes with the Democrats.

Senate career
Sanders and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 on January 15, 2007. The measure would have provided funding for R&D on geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide, set emissions standards for new vehicles and a renewable fuels requirement for gasoline beginning in 2016, established energy efficiency and renewable portfolio standards beginning in 2008 and low-carbon electric generation standards beginning in 2016 for electric utilities, and would have required periodic evaluations by the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20">[21]

On September 24, 2008, Senator Sanders posted on his website a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson against the initial bailout proposal, drawing more than 8,000 citizen co-signers in the first 24 hours.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21">[22] On January 26, 2009, Sanders and Democrats Robert Byrd, Russ Feingold and Tom Harkin were the sole majority members to vote against confirmation of Timothy Geithner to be United States Secretary of the Treasury.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-22">[23]

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Environment and Public Works
 * Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety
 * Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy (Chairman)
 * Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure
 * Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
 * Subcommittee on Energy
 * Subcommittee on National Parks
 * Subcommittee on Water and Power
 * Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
 * Subcommittee on Children and Families
 * Subcommittee on Retirement and Aging
 * Committee on Veterans' Affairs
 * Committee on the Budget

Political positions
Senator Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-socialistsuccess_0-1">[1] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-politicosocialist_1-1">[2]

Health care
He is a staunch supporter of a single-payer universal health care system.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23">[24]

Renegotiaton of NAFTA
He is a strong advocate for renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is a strong opponent of the United States current trade policy towards Latin America and China.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from August 2009">[citation needed]

Iraq War
Sanders has opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq from its start and voted against it in the House of Representatives.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-24">[25] He has called for a speedy withdrawal and increased veterans benefits.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from August 2009">[citation needed]

Media freedom
Sanders—a journalist—has also been a leader in calling for media reform and opposes increased concentration of media outlets.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-25">[26] He appeared in Orwell Rolls in His Grave and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, two documentaries on the subject.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-26">[27]

Global warming and the environment
He warns about the dangers of global warming. <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-27">[28]

US Federal Reserve audit
Sanders has introduced a Senate companion bill to H.R. 1207 which will conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-28">[29]

Civil rights and women's rights
He is a vocal supporter of gay rights, such as marriage, and of pro-choice legislation.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-NYTSocSen_3-2">[4]

Personal life
Sanders is married to Jane O'Meara, president of Burlington College, and has one son, Levi Sanders, from a previous marriage.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-29">[30] His brother, Larry Sanders, is a Green Party politician in Oxfordshire in England. His nephew, Jacob, is a former Oxford city councillor for the Green Party.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space: nowrap;" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from August 2010">[citation needed]

Sanders is one of two sitting U.S. Senators who went to James Madison High School in Brooklyn. Before becoming a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Sanders's roommate was Richard I. Sugarman, a professor at the University of Vermont. Coincidentally, the only other Independent currently serving in the U.S. Senate, Joe Lieberman (I-CT) shared a suite with Professor Sugarman when the two attended Yale University in the 1960s.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-30">[31]

Sanders has regular guest appearances on the Thom Hartmann radio program for the Friday segment, "Brunch with Bernie".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-31">[32].

Sanders also stars in his own weekly five-minute show, "Senator Sanders Unfiltered",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-32">[33] hosted online at www.sandersunfiltered.com.

Electoral history
''Most recent election shown below. For a complete list see: Electoral History of Bernie Sanders''