[ The Vermont independent is taking over the Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee with plans to both embrace his activist
roots and work across the aisle.]
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BERNIE SANDERS, HELP COMMITTEE  
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Burgess Everett
December 16, 2022
Politico
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_ The Vermont independent is taking over the Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee with plans to both embrace his activist roots
and work across the aisle. _

Sen. Bernie Sanders will be taking over the HELP committee, as it’s
known, under a divided government with his party holding a tiny Senate
majority. , Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

 

After three decades in Congress that earned him iconic status on the
American left, Bernie Sanders is preparing for a different role in his
next act.

He ran twice for president, then pushed an all-Democratic government
as far left as it could possibly go, and now the Vermont independent
is set to take over the Senate’s prestigious Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee next year. The panel is the perfect
platform for Sanders’ top issues, like Medicare for All. It also has
a proud bipartisan reputation.

Which presents a new challenge for the famously pugnacious progressive
as he weighs whether to run for reelection in 2024. Sanders will be
taking over the HELP committee, as it’s known, under a divided
government with his party holding a tiny Senate majority.

And he’s conspicuously aware that holding one of the top gavels in
Congress won’t entitle him to muscle his own agenda through.
What’s more, many Democrats don’t support all of Sanders’ policy
prescriptions.

So the gruff 81-year-old is planning to be a chair who can do both:
embrace his activist roots while also working across the aisle on
incremental gains that could actually become law.

“I’m going to be walking a tightrope,” Sanders said in an
interview this week. “I want to work with Republicans on issues
where we can make progress. In other areas, they’re not going to
support me. And I’m not gonna give up on those issues.”

In the interview, he revealed a short list of goals that might have
bipartisan appeal on the committee next Congress. They include
improving primary care access; reducing the cost of prescription drugs
and insulin; expanding early childhood education; beefing up the
health and education workforce; and even trying to tackle an increase
in the minimum wage, which he thinks should now be well above the $15
an hour he started pushing years ago.

Simultaneously, Sanders won’t be satisfied with a chairmanship that
stays solely in the political center. That means he’s thinking about
how to advocate for Medicare for All, take on the pharmaceutical
industry aggressively, promote free public college tuition and take
his committee show on the road to the public — a signature touch
from the rally-holding senator.

 

[Bernie Sanders stands while people around him hold signs that say
Medicare For All. ]
The panel is the perfect platform for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ top
issues, like Medicare for All. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

What’s clear, though, is that Sanders understands the limits of a
gavel that will give him greater responsibility and sway than ever
over the U.S. government. Summing up his approach, he said he’s
“not gonna spend my whole time, by any means ... having hearings
which I know will not result in any concrete legislation. On the other
hand, I’m not going to ignore these issues.”

 

“There are some issues that will have zero Republican support that I
will fight for,” he added, even though they “ain’t going to
happen right now, and I recognize that.” But he then underscored
that “I look forward” to making progress on areas where he sees
potential for “consensus and bipartisan work.”

Some of the HELP panel’s Republicans are plainly skeptical of
Sanders as a committee chair after two presidential runs and years of
activism for progressive priorities. Deal-seeking Sen. Mitt Romney
(R-Utah) deadpanned about Sanders’ impending chairmanship: “Heaven
help us.”

“Ideas come out from left field, literally. A lot of fury, energy
and passion. So far nothing’s come of it,” Romney said.
“Historically, he’s had a lot to say but hasn’t been able to get
much done. And HELP needs to be able to get things done.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has clashed with Sanders both publicly and
privately, in leadership meetings and also on key policy debates
within the Democratic caucus. Yet Manchin left some room for his
colleague to cut against his diehard left-leaning reputation: “Maybe
he’ll surprise people.”

In fact, Sanders has dealt out subtle and pragmatic surprises ever
since his days in the House developing bipartisan amendments. He cut a
landmark deal in 2014 with the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to
expand health care access for veterans. He’s worked with Republicans
repeatedly on less interventionist foreign policy measures.

And though he didn’t go quietly, Sanders ultimately accepted
Democrats’ recent major tax, climate and health law, even if it was
a shell of Sanders’ original $6 trillion vision for party-line
progress.

That’s why the HELP Committee is an intriguing fit for Sanders. The
committee is a mix of conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.),
progressives like Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and centrists like Sens.
Susan Collins (R-Maine) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).

“It’s gonna be interesting,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.),
another member of the health committee. “It has a track record of
getting legislation. And I think Bernie will want to continue that
track record.”

[Bill Cassidy leaves a meeting with the Senate Republicans at the U.S.
Capitol.]
Sen. Bill Cassidy specifically mentioned addressing the nursing
shortage as a top priority for the panel. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty
Images

Sanders has already met with his incoming GOP counterpart, Louisiana
Sen. Bill Cassidy, about what they can do together. He’s also had a
conversation with Collins about rural health care policy. In a
separate interview, Cassidy specifically mentioned addressing the
nursing shortage as a top priority for the panel.

Sanders has also met with Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden
(D-Ore.), who shares jurisdiction over many issues that the Vermonter
is interested in addressing. Collins predicted that if Sanders
concentrates more on rural health than Medicare for All, he’ll have
more success.

And he’s got a tough act to follow: The panel’s recent track
record under Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and
retired Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is impressive. The committee
pushed through legislation fixing the No Child Left Behind education
policy, cracking down on surprise medical bills and developing new
treatments under the umbrella of the 21st Century Cures Act. It also
played a huge rule in Congress’ pandemic response, an example of how
the HELP Committee can be called upon in times of crisis.

Sanders comes in as a “chairman who’s running kind of independent
of everybody,” including Democrats, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski
(R-Alaska), another member of the panel. “If you’re a good
chairman, you’re going to listen to the priorities of all the folks
on our committee. And hopefully he would do that.”

Many Republicans only know Sanders as a presidential candidate and
Budget Committee chair during unified Democratic control, but he’s
led legislative efforts under divided government before as Veterans
Affairs Committee Chair in 2014. Democrats said that Sanders’ work
at that time is more of a blueprint for how he’ll guide the HELP
Committee in 2023.

“He’ll be a chairman who not only is putting the spotlight on
issues he cares about, but also will do a lot of good bipartisan work.
His record indicates that,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said.

For now, Sanders is shrugging off his own reelection decision in 2024.
He said his sole focus is on a chairmanship he’s been building
toward since he was first elected to the Senate in 2006.

At the time, Sanders recalled, he asked the late Sen. Ted Kennedy
(D-Mass.) — then the HELP Committee chair — if he could get a seat
on the panel. Kennedy intervened with the late Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to get Sanders that position, allowing his fellow
New Englander to start building the seniority he needed to eventually
lead the committee.

And now that Sanders is replacing Murray, he has a realistic view of
what’s achievable with 51 Senate seats and a GOP House.

“We can achieve some good results working in a bipartisan manner,”
Sanders said. “But I am not naive.”

* Bernie Sanders
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