Bernie Sanders' new role could be his final act in Washington
In two unsuccessful bids for the White House, Sen. Bernie Sanders made no secret of his disdain for billionaires. Now, in what could be his final act in Washington, he has the power to summon them to testify before Congress — and he has a few corporate executives in his sights.
One is Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, who Sanders complains “has become a multibillionaire” by developing a coronavirus vaccine with government money. “I think Mr. Bancel should be talking to his advisers about what he might say to the United States Senate,” Sanders warned in an interview.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Howard Schultz, the on-and-off CEO of Starbucks, are also on his list. He views them as union busters whose companies have resorted to “really vicious and illegal” tactics to keep workers from organizing. He has already demanded that Schultz testify at a hearing in March.
Sanders, I-Vt., can put these men on the spot because he is the new chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The job gives him sweeping jurisdiction over issues that have animated his rise in politics, such as access to health care, the high cost of prescription drugs and workers' rights.
Sanders, 81, who identifies as a democratic socialist, has said he will not seek the Democratic nomination for president again if President Joe Biden runs for reelection — a position he reiterated in a recent interview in his Senate office. He is himself up for reelection in 2024 and would not say whether he would run again, which raises the prospect that the next two years in Congress could be his last.
Sanders is clearly operating on two tracks. Last week, in a move that might surprise critics who view him as unbending, he partnered with a Republican, Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, to call on rail companies to offer seven days of paid sick leave to their workers — a provision that the Senate defeated last year when it passed legislation to avert a rail strike.
But he also sent a curt letter to Schultz, giving him until Tuesday to respond confirming his attendance at the hearing. That followed an earlier, angry letter in which Sanders urged the Starbucks chief to “immediately halt your aggressive and illegal union busting campaign.” A Starbucks spokesperson said the company was considering the request for Schultz to testify and was working to “offer clarifying information” about its labor practices.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, a Democrat who served as majority leader, said that Sanders could “bring a balance between the progressive and the pragmatic.”
“He will be progressive; he will be aspirational; he will continue to fight the fight,” Daschle said. “But at the same time, I believe Bernie Sanders wants to get things done.”
The chairmanship is the latest turn in Sanders' long career in politics, a coda to his rise from a left-wing socialist curiosity to a national figure with respect, power and a devoted fan base. After three decades in Washington, he still manages to cast himself as an outsider. And while he may never ascend to the presidency, there is no question that he has left his mark on national politics, reviving and strengthening the American left.
Sanders' activist roots run deep, but after arriving in Washington in 1991 as Vermont's lone member of the House, he quickly learned that being an outsider would only get him so far; he would have to deal with Democrats if he wanted any power. In the Senate, which he joined in 2007, he has worked his way up the ranks. In addition to leading the Veterans' Affairs Committee, he has also served as chair of the Budget Committee.
No one — perhaps not even Sanders himself — could have predicted then that he would wage two credible runs for the Democratic nomination for president. In the interview, Sanders brushed aside questions of politics. He wanted to talk policy.
Sanders wants to hear from Moderna, he said, about the company's plan to sharply hike the price of its coronavirus vaccine. In a recent letter to Bancel, he assailed the vaccine maker for “unacceptable corporate greed” and urged the company to reconsider.
A spokesperson for Moderna said the company had always “been willing to engage in conversation with government stakeholders” and would continue to do so.
At the hearing in March, Sanders wants Schultz to explain why Starbucks has drawn scrutiny from the National Labor Relations Board.
The board has been investigating Starbucks for various allegations of misconduct, including that it had illegally denied raises to union employees and had fired seven workers at a store in Memphis, Tennessee, for their union-organizing activity. A court later ordered Starbucks to reinstate those workers.