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Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician from the U.S. state of Vermont. He has represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives since 1991.

Sanders is an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments. He is the only independent member of the House, and is one of very few self-described democratic socialists elected to federal office in the United States in recent times. Sanders is currently serving his eighth two-year term, and is giving up his House seat to pursue the open Senate seat to be vacated by the retiring Jim Jeffords in the 2006 Senate election in Vermont. He is a populist with widespread support in Vermont. *

Early life

Sanders, the son of a Jewish Polish immigrant to the United States, was born in Brooklyn. He graduated from Madison High School in Brooklyn and later attended the University of Chicago, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1964.

Sanders moved to Vermont in 1964. He worked as a carpenter and journalist.

Early political career

Sanders's political career began in 1971, when he joined the anti-Vietnam War Liberty Union Party in Vermont. Sanders was an unsuccessful independent candidate for election to the Senate in 1972 and 1974, as well as for governor of Vermont in 1972, 1976 and 1986. In his initial campaign Sanders received only two percent of the vote, but in subsequent races for Senate and Governor were slightly more successful, with Sanders' highest vote tally being six percent.

In 1977, 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 three-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 his first term, supporters of Sanders 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 in 1986. He finished third with 14.5 percent of the vote, which was enough to deny incumbent Democrat Madeleine Kunin a majority; she was elected by the state legislature. In 1988, when six-term incumbent Representative Jim Jeffords made a successful run for the Senate, Sanders ran for the open seat and narrowly lost to Peter Smith, the former lieutenant governor and the Republican candidate for governor two years earlier. He again ran against Smith in 1990. In one of the biggest upsets in recent political history, he took 56 percent of the vote and defeated Smith by 16 points, becoming the first independent member of the House since 1950.

Sanders was a member of the faculty at Harvard University in 1989 and of Hamilton College in 1990.

In the House of Representatives

Although relations between Sanders and House Democratic leadership have not always been smooth, the Democrats have not actively campaigned against Sanders since his first run for Congress. While Democratic candidates have run against him in every election except 1994 (when Sanders managed to win the Democrats' endorsement), they have received little financial support.

Sanders has been reelected six times and is the longest-serving independent member of the House. Despite his independent status, he has only faced one difficult contest. That 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 never failed to win less than 55 percent of the vote. Most recently, in 2004, Sanders took 69 percent to Republican Greg Parke's 24 percent and Democrat Larry Drown's 7 percent.

Sanders' lifetime legislative score from the AFL-CIO is 100 percent. In contrast, as of 2004, he has a grade of "F" from the National Rifle Association, though occasionally voting in favor of NRA-sponsored initiatives. Sanders voted against the Brady Bill and in favor of a NRA-supported bill to restrict lawsuits against gun manufacturers in 2005.* Sanders voted to abolish the so-called "marriage penalty" and also for a bill that sought to ban human cloning. Sanders has endorsed every Democratic candidate for president of the United States since 1992. Sanders is a co-founder of the House Progressive Caucus and chaired the grouping of mostly left-wing Democrats for its first eight years.

Sanders voted against the Iraq Resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq in the fall of 2002 and opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 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 blasting 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." *

Sanders supports universal health care and opposes free trade, which he argues deprives American workers of their jobs while exploiting foreign workers in sweat-shop factories.

An amendment he offered in June 2005 to limit provisions giving the government power to obtain individuals' library and book-buying records passed the House by a bipartisan majority, but was removed on November 4 of that year by House-Senate negotiators, and never became law. * 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 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Bill).

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

Sanders has also criticized Alan Greenspan. In June 2003, during a question-and-answer discussion with then-Federal Reserve chairman, Sanders told Greenspan that he "was way out of touch" and "represents the wealthy and large corporations." *

Republicans have attacked Sanders as "an ineffective extremist" for passing only one law and fifteen amendments in his eight terms in the House.*

Senate campaign

Sanders, who had mentioned on several previous occasions that he would run for the Senate if longtime friend Jim Jeffords were to ever retire, announced that he would run following Jeffords's announcement that he would not seek a fourth term in 2006 on April 21, 2005.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, immediately endorsed Sanders; Schumer's backing was critical, as it means that any Democrat running against Sanders cannot expect to receive any significant financial backing from the national level. Sanders has also been 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 voted with House Democrats. Senator Barack Obama has campaigned for Sanders in Vermont.

Governor Jim Douglas, widely believed to be the only Republican who could possibly defeat Sanders, decided against a Senate run soon after Sanders announced his candidacy. Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie, who had previously planned to challenge Sanders, withdrew from the race on October 26, 2005. * Businessman Richard Tarrant and retired Air Force Colonel Greg Parke are vying for the Republican Party nomination. Parke previously lost election to Sanders for Congress in 2004, garnering only 24 percent of the vote. All polls show Sanders with a substantial lead.

Personal life and trivia

  • Bernie's brother, Larry Sanders, is a politician in the county of Oxfordshire in England.
  • Sanders has been a longtime friend of free-market economist Walter Block.
  • Bernie Sanders has regular guest appearances on the Thom Hartmann radio program for the Friday segment "Brunch with Bernie."
  • He is married to Jane O'Meara, president of Burlington College, and has one son, Levi Sanders, from a previous marriage. *

External links

Official Sites

Interviews

Articles by Rep. Bernie Sanders

Articles about Sanders

1941 births | Living people | 2006 United States Senate candidates | American socialists | People from Brooklyn | Jewish-American politicians | Members of the United States House of Representatives from Vermont | Pro-choice politicians | Burlington, Vermont

Bernie Sanders | Bernie Sanders

 

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