Politifact
By Louis Jacobson
September 22, 2015
As
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders surges in the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination, his long record in politics and activism — even
as far back as 46-year-old
op-eds in local Vermont newspapers — is coming under increasing
scrutiny.
A
clear example is a graphic we received from a reader who saw it
circulating on the Internet. The creator is not listed, but it seems to
have been put together by a supporter
of Sanders’ rival, Hillary Clinton, since it highlights some of
Sanders’ past positions that break with Democratic (and even mainstream)
orthodoxy.
We
gave the full fact-check treatment to one of the 12 claims listed, but
we decided to briefly address the other 11, classifying them into four
broad categories -- largely
accurate, some truth but missing context, mostly incorrect, and
inaccurate.
We
sought input from both the Sanders and Clinton camps, but neither
provided us with any information, so we found our own. Here’s what we
discovered.
LARGELY ACCURATE
• Voted for NRA-backed laws to give gun manufacturers legal immunity
Sanders,
whose state includes rural areas where guns are a way of life, has a
more mixed record on guns than many Democratic elected officials do,
especially those with
a national profile. (We’ve looked at this issue before in this
article.)
In
both 2003 and 2005, when he was in the House, Sanders voted in favor of
a measure to prohibit lawsuits against firearm makers. The second
measure eventually became
law.
The 2003 measure was never voted on in the Senate, but when it came up in the Senate in 2005, Clinton voted against it.
• Voted to allow guns on Amtrak
In
2009, Sanders, by then a senator, voted to allow firearms in checked
baggage on Amtrak trains, as an amendment to the congressional budget.
The amendment passed.
Clinton, by then serving as secretary of state, did not vote on the amendment.
• Voted against comprehensive immigration reform in 2007
Sanders’
presidential campaign website says he would "sign comprehensive
immigration reform into law to bring over 11 million undocumented
workers out of the shadows."
However,
he wasn’t always on that side of the issue. In 2007, when George W.
Bush was president, Sanders joined with some conservative Republicans in
opposing a comprehensive
immigration bill. The bipartisan bill, sponsored by the late Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., went down in
defeat.
At
the time, Sanders worried that an influx of legal immigrants would
lower wages for workers. "Sanders was basically one of our only allies …
especially for low-skilled
workers" in 2007, Ana Avendano, a former top immigration official at
the AFL-CIO, told Politico earlier this year. "He adamantly put his foot
down and said these kinds of programs (allow) employers to bring in
more and more vulnerable workers."
"I
wasn’t happy when he voted against the bill and I wasn’t happy we lost.
It hurt," immigration-reform advocate Frank Sharry told Politico.
Democratic
Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin
of Iowa joined Sanders in voting against the measure. Clinton, by
contrast, voted for
the immigration bill, as did then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
• Opposes plans to raise visa caps to let more immigrants move to America legally
Sanders
has been outspoken about his stance on H-1B visas, which are commonly
used in the high-tech sector. (Contrary to the graphic's text, H-1B visas are for temporary
guestworkers, not for permanent immigrants.) Sanders argues that the
program allows corporations to give American jobs to foreign workers. In
April, Sanders was one of 10 senators to seek an investigation into H-1B visas, citing concerns that the visas were
being used to displace American workers.
The
I-Squared Act of 2015 brought the issue of H-1B visas back into the
spotlight. The legislation would raise the cap on H-1B visas from 65,000
to up to 195,000, depending
on market conditions and demand.
In
2008, Clinton said she supported raising the H-1B visa cap, according
to InfoWorld. "Foreign skilled workers contribute greatly to our
technological development," she
said. "That is well understood in Silicon Valley."
• Opposes the Export-Import Bank
The
Export-Import Bank of the United States, an agency that helps overseas
companies finance American exports, was deauthorized on July 1 when its
charter expired. Sanders
voted against reauthorizing the bank’s charter in June.
"At
a time when almost every major corporation in this country has shut
down plants and outsourced millions of American jobs, we should not be
providing corporate welfare
to multi-national corporations through the Export-Import Bank," Sanders
said in a statement. "If the Export-Import Bank cannot be reformed to
become a vehicle for real job creation in the United States, it should
be eliminated."
In
July, the Senate revived legislation that would reauthorize the
Export-Import Bank. Sanders missed the vote. But opponents in the House
have so far blocked a companion
vote.
In May, Clinton slammed the Republican presidential candidates for opposing reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.
"It’s
wrong that candidates for president, who really should know better, are
jumping on this bandwagon," she said in New Hampshire. "It’s wrong,
it’s embarrassing. …
The idea that we would remove this relatively small but vital source of
funding for our businesses to compete is absolutely backwards."
• Voted to dump Vermont’s nuclear waste in a majority Latino community in Sierra Blanca, Texas
In
1998, the House of Representatives approved a compact struck between
Texas, Vermont and Maine that would allow Vermont and Maine to dump
low-level nuclear waste at
a designated site in Sierra Blanca, Texas. Sanders, at the time
representing Vermont in the House, cosponsored the bill and actively
ushered it through Congress.
Located
about 16 miles from the Mexican border, Sierra Blanca’s population is
predominantly of Mexican ancestry. At the time, the community was about
two-thirds Latino,
and its residents had an average income of $8,000, according to the an
article in the Bangor Daily News.
The
low-level nuclear waste would include "items such as scrap metal and
worker’s gloves… as well as medical gloves used in radiation treatments
at hospitals," according
to the Bangor Daily News. Clinton, then the First Lady, did not have a
vote on the matter.
SOME TRUTH, BUT MISSING CONTEXT
• Voted to let income tax relief expire for ‘middle and working class families’
Sanders
not only voted against final passage of a bill to temporarily extend
the tax cuts first passed under George W. Bush, but his rhetoric against
the measure brought
him something approaching cult status within the liberal wing of the
Democratic Party.
The
Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation
Act of 2010 passed the Senate 81-19 on its way to becoming law. Sanders
was one of 13 Democrats
to vote against the bill -- and against the wishes of President Barack
Obama.
As
the bill was being debated, Sanders spoke on the floor for an
eight-and-a-half-hour stretch, generating significant media attention.
The speech was so popular that
he turned it into a book in 2011.
There
is no indication that Sanders actually wanted tax relief for "middle
and working class" families to expire. Sanders argued that by extending
the tax cuts for all
income levels, the measure gave away too much to the richest Americans.
Indeed, the graphic’s phrasing is a bit misleading; the bill passed
despite Sanders’ "no" vote, so tax relief never did expire for "middle
and working class families."
Clinton was secretary of state at the time and did not vote on the measure.
• Said African-American voters support Obama because of racial pride in an NPR interview in 2014
Asked
about African-American support for Democrats in an NPR interview,
Sanders said, "What you got is an African-American president, and the
African-American community
is very, very proud that this country has overcome racism and voted for
him for president. And that's kind of natural. You've got a situation
where the Republican Party has been strongly anti-immigration, and
you've got a Hispanic community which is looking
to the Democrats for help."
Sanders
went on to say that voters "should not be basing your politics based on
your color. What you should be basing your politics on is, how is your
family doing?"
MOSTLY INCORRECT
• Said "America has overcome racism by electing a black president" in a 2014 NPR interview
This came from the same NPR interview as the previous claim. The graphic gets Sanders’ words right, but mangles the context.
Reading
the full quote, it’s clear that Sanders is not saying that Obama’s
election means that racism has ceased to exist in America. Rather, he
said that on the specific
issue of electing a president, the electorate has moved past any
inherent racism and voted (twice) to elect an African-American candidate
as president.
• Wrote an article supporting legalizing all drugs, including heroin and cocaine
The
liberal magazine Mother Jones recently published a few articles
reviewing Sanders’ early history in politics and activism. In one,
journalist Tim Murphy wrote that
during the early 1970s, "Sanders floated hippie-friendly proposals,
such as legalizing all drugs."
However,
there’s no evidence that he supports such a position today. In fact,
while Sanders supports legalization of medical marijuana and the
decriminalization of small
amounts of recreational marijuana, he is undecided on full-bore
legalization of recreational marijuana -- let alone urging legalization
of recreational heroin or cocaine.
Last
May, Sanders said during an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, "the
state of Vermont voted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts
of marijuana and I support
that. I have supported the use of medical marijuana. And when I was
mayor of Burlington, in a city with a large population, I can tell you
very few people were arrested for smoking marijuana. Our police had more
important things to do. Colorado has led the
effort toward legalizing marijuana and I'm going to watch very closely
to see the pluses and minuses of what they have done. I will have more
to say about this issue within the coming months."
In
addition, Sanders in 2014 called heroin addiction a "very, very serious
problem" in Vermont. "Heroin is a killer. Once you're into heroin, it's
either jail or death,"
Sanders said. He has focused on increasing treatment resources as
opposed to treating addiction as a criminal problem; he has spoken out
more generally against a "war on drugs approach."
• Wrote an article arguing fluoridated tap water is a plot by government to control citizens’ lives
For
those who may have forgotten about what fluoridated water does, it aims
to prevent tooth decay. (We have previously discussed the topic here.)
In
August 1969, in a column titled "Reflections on a Dying Society,"
Sanders wrote, "The fluoridation of water and the giving of medicants to
children in schools are portents,
perhaps, of many worse things to come."
However,
this was just one line in a much longer article, and it’s debatable
whether the sentence even supports the graphic’s claim that Sanders
thought fluoridation was,
or is, a government plot. (Not to mention, once again, that he wrote
the article 46 years ago.)
More importantly, Sanders today is on record supporting the medical benefits of fluoridated water.
In
his capacity as a congressional subcommittee chairman, Sanders released
a report on dental care in 2012. It included this passage: "We must
ensure that all people get
the preventive services and education they need to maintain oral
health, especially those who do not have the resources to be immediately
seen by a dentist when a problem develops. For example, drinking
fluoridated water can have important oral health benefits
for everyone, especially for those who are unable to access or afford
dental care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized
community water fluoridation as one of the ten greatest public health
achievements of the 21st century."
INACCURATE
• Opposes requiring all children to have a K-12 education
The
graphic doesn’t just claim that Sanders doesn’t support a K-12
education. By using the present tense, it argues that Sanders still
believes it.
Like
some of the claims above, the claim is based on writings and campaigns
from more than 40 years ago — sufficiently long ago to be of
questionable value. More recent
legislative evidence indicates that Sanders supports a traditional view
of K-12 education. Since there is no evidence that Sanders currently
opposes compulsory education through 12th grade, we rated the claim
False.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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