New York Times
By Jennifer Steinhauer
March 14, 2016
WASHINGTON
— As Democrats cobbled together a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s
immigration law three years ago, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York was
clear about one thing: His party could
not suffer a single defection.
But
one naysayer remained — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who had
opposed a similar effort in 2007 and once again did not like provisions
in the new bill that he thought would displace
American workers. And he had a price, a $1.5 billion youth jobs
program.
Through
wheeling and dealing, shaming and cajoling, Mr. Sanders, an independent
who caucuses with Democrats, got his wish, and his favored provision
was grafted incongruously onto a tough-minded
Republican border security amendment and paid for by higher visa fees
for some foreign travelers.
The
immigration bill, opposed by House Republicans, never became law. But
the jobs program amendment was classic Bernie Sanders, a self-described
Democratic socialist who has spent a quarter-century
in Congress working the side door, tacking on amendments to larger
bills that scratch his particular policy itches, generally focused on
working-class Americans, income inequality and the environment.
Mr.
Sanders is not unlike Tea Party Republicans in his tactics, except his
are a decaf version. While he is unlikely to turn against his party on
important votes, he is most proud of the
things he has tried, unsuccessfully, to block over the years. And he
boasts about them constantly on the campaign trail: the Iraq war, the
Wall Street bailout and the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
But
in spite of persistent carping that Mr. Sanders is nothing but a
quixotic crusader — during their first debate, Hillary Clinton cracked,
“I’m a progressive, but I’m a progressive who
likes to get things done” — he has often been an effective, albeit
modest, legislator.
Over
one 12-year stretch in the House, he passed more amendments by roll
call vote than any other member of Congress. In the Senate, he secured
money for dairy farmers and community health
centers, blocked banks from hiring foreign workers and reined in the
Federal Reserve, all through measures attached to larger bills.
“It has been a very successful strategy,” said Warren Gunnels, Mr. Sanders’s longtime policy adviser.
Mr.
Sanders has been pushing basically the same legislative agenda since he
was the mayor of Burlington, Vt., in the 1980s, one that favors
workers, veterans and college students. But in
2016, he has found that the marriage of his passions and his blunt,
fiery oration have come into vogue among many Democrats.
“I
would point out to you that in perhaps the most significant public
policy issue of our time, the war in Iraq, I cast the correct vote,” Mr.
Sanders told CNN last year. “On the other hand,
Secretary Clinton voted for that war. Her judgment was not right. It is
an issue we have got to talk more about.”
His
congressional relationships with Democrats and Republicans have been
largely legislative and not loving. A backscratcher he is not. Mr.
Sanders is far more likely to be found alone in
his apartment watching cable news than out for Chinese food with other
members of Congress. In an institution where relationships are often the
butter, Mr. Sanders leverages a shared policy passion to grease his
legislation.
“He
is not Ted Kennedy, who managed to have these personal relationships
that come from the day in and day out working the halls,” said
Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, who
replaced Mr. Sanders in the House. “The way he works is consistent with
his temperament and his skills.”
Yet
counter to his reputation in his bid for the White House as a far-left
gadfly, Mr. Sanders has done much of his work with Republican partners,
generally people with whom he has almost
nothing in common, with the notable exception of the discrete issue or
two on which they see eye to eye.
He
worked with Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, to prevent
foreign workers from replacing Americans at banks that have had a
federal bailout, and with former Representative
Ron Paul of Texas, who shared his zeal for monitoring the Federal
Reserve.
Mr.
Sanders’s most notable partnership with a Republican was also one of
his greatest successes. In 2014, Mr. Sanders, as chairman of the Senate
Veterans Affairs Committee, worked out an
accord with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, on a bill to
expand veterans’ access to health care after a scandal involving
veterans’ hospitals across the country.
The
bill did something Republicans wanted: It allowed veterans to go
outside of the official hospital system to get care under certain
circumstances, while it expanded the government services
that Mr. Sanders demanded.
“Given
how liberal he is, it made the work hard,” Mr. McCain recalled last
week. “But he was an honest liberal. I’ve worked with people who tell
you they are going to do one thing and then
do another, and Bernie did what he said. And he was very effective. It
was the first real reform of the V.A. ever.”
Big
legislation largely eludes Mr. Sanders because his ideas are usually
far to the left of the majority of the Senate — from his notions about
bank regulations, to the increase he seeks
to the minimum wage, to his repeated attempts to get the federal
government in the business of providing rebates for the purchase and
installation of solar heating systems.
But
from his days in the House, where he served from 1991 to 2007, and into
his Senate career, Mr. Sanders has largely found ways to press his
agenda through appending small provisions to
the larger bills of others.
In
the House, he attached a measure to prevent the Bush administration
from finalizing rules that would have allowed companies to cut the
pensions of older workers. Community health care
clinics were expanded via a Sanders amendment to President Obama’s
health care law. His amendments with Mr. Grassley to prevent bailed-out
banks from replacing American workers with foreign ones was part of a
major economic stimulus bill in 2009.
“The
reason he has been so successful is that he built very strong
left-right coalitions, ” said Mr. Gunnels, who now works on Mr.
Sanders’s campaign. “He doesn’t see himself as on the left.
He sees himself exclusively as fighting for working people.”
But
when it comes to Mr. Sanders’s proudest legislative moments, it is the
losses that stand out, in the liberal mirror image of the Tea Party
Republicans who oppose large-scale legislation.
He
was among 25 senators in 2008 to vote against the $700 billion bailout
of big banks. He said no to the Iraq war. The Patriot Act and a popular
measure to develop and deploy a defense system
to stop Iranian ballistic missiles? Not to Mr. Sanders.
In
2010, he voted against a measure to temporarily extend the Bush tax
cuts against the wishes of the White House. He also gave an eight-hour
floor speech to defend himself, setting off his
current romance with liberal voters.
Mr.
Sanders got the rest of the Democratic base to listen to words he has
been repeating for decades, not so much because his legislation has been
in constant step with the nation’s, but
rather because much of the nation has come around to the things he has
been legislating.
“Bernie has been talking about income inequality since 1981,” Mr. Welch said. “And now that is a message whose time has come.”
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