Bernie Sanders
Bio | Bernard “Bernie” Sanders is a politician who has served in Vermont as a Senator since 2007 and an at-large Congressman from 1991 to 2007. As an independent democratic-socialist, he filed as an independent running for the Senate in 2024 and a democrat for the presidential election in 2020. |
Status and Position | Current US Senator of Vermont |
Political Party and Jurisdiction | Democrat, Vermont |
Elections | Election Jurisdiction | Started Campaign | Campaign Status | Poll Rankings (of the vote) |
| 2024 Senate Election Vermont 2 | Vermont 2 | No | N/A | N/A |
Campaign Financing | Sanders has pledged not to accept campaign contributions from pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. In terms of policy, Sanders would support overturning Citizens United, abolishing super PACs, and publicly funding elections. |
Voting Rights | Sanders would take several steps to ensure voting becomes more accessible to Americans, including making Election Day a national holiday, eradicating voter ID laws, banning political gerrymandering, and automatically registering every eligible American to vote. He would also seek to expand the Voting Rights Act. |
Opinions on Issues
Issues | Stance | Summary |
| Universal Healthcare | For | Sanders has indicated that he would seek to implement a universal healthcare program, preferably Medicare-for-All. Sanders is a strong advocate for universal healthcare. He was instrumental in writing Medicare-for-All legislation, and would like to see it passed into law. The program would eliminate private insurance companies in the United States. Sanders would also pursue initiatives to limit the cost of prescription drugs. |
| Socialized Healthcare | Nuance | Supported the Affordable Care Act but would replace it with Medicare-for-All. |
| Private Healthcare | Against | When asked, he said that he would seek to eliminate private healthcare. |
| LGBT Rights | For | Is an advocate for LGBT rights. Sanders has committed to supporting legislation that would prevent discrimination against the LGBT community, including the Equality Act and the Every Child Deserves a Family Act. He would also support the creation of police training programs to prevent the abuse of LGBT people in their custody, especially transgender women of color. |
| Taxes | For | Supports higher taxes for higher incomes (a marginal tax rate). Sanders is a proponent of increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations in order to reduce tax burdens on the lower and middle classes. He has specifically advocate for several changes to the tax code, including a progressive estate tax, increased taxes on capital gains, increased taxes on corporations, and an increased marginal tax rate on incomes that surpass $10 million. He would also introduce a Wall Street tax. |
| Flat Tax Rate | Against | Has proposed progressive tax rates. Sanders is a proponent of increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations in order to reduce tax burdens on the lower and middle classes. He has specifically advocate for several changes to the tax code, including a progressive estate tax, increased taxes on capital gains, increased taxes on corporations, and an increased marginal tax rate on incomes that surpass $10 million. He would also introduce a Wall Street tax. |
| Abortion | For | His proposal for Medicare would provide for abortions. Sanders is supportive of reproductive rights. If elected president, he would seek to fully fund Planned Parenthood and other Title X clinics that provide reproductive health care. He has also committed to appointing judges that would uphold the precedent of Roe v Wade. He was supportive of the ACA provision that required employers to include contraception in their insurance coverage, and was deeply critical of the Hobby Lobby v Burwell Supreme Court case, which exempted employers from that responsibility if it conflicted with religious beliefs. |
| Gun Control | For | Supports gun control measures such as universal background checks and an assault weapon ban. Sanders supports gun control, and if elected, would specifically seek to enact measures to implement universal background checks and to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He does, however, have a history of opposing gun control legislation, including voting against a 1993 law to require background checks and two pieces of legislation that would allow gun manufacturers to be sued for their involvement in gun violence. |
| Assisted Suicide | For | Has voiced support for it to be legal. Sanders supports gun control, and if elected, would specifically seek to enact measures to implement universal background checks and to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He does, however, have a history of opposing gun control legislation, including voting against a 1993 law to require background checks and two pieces of legislation that would allow gun manufacturers to be sued for their involvement in gun violence. |
| Government Interference | For | Supports measures such as gun control, environmental regulations, and the abolition of private healthcare. |
| Planned Parenthood | For | Supports increasing federal funding of Planned Parenthood. |
| Welfare | For | Has spoken in support of the expansion of several welfare programs Sanders is a strong advocate for welfare programs, and supports major expansions of programs such as Social Security, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). |
| Welfare | For | A representative from his 2016 presidential campaign said he was fully supportive of embryonic stem cell research. |
| Death Penalty | Against | Would abolish the death penalty. Sanders has outlined several reforms he would make to the criminal justice system if elected. These include abolishing the death penalty. |
| Mandatory Prison Sentence | Against | Supports abolishing mandatory minimums. |
| Military Spending | Against | Has said he would cut military spending. |
| War on Terrorism | Against | Has always strongly opposed US military presence in the Middle East, would make it a priority to withdraw troops from the Middle East. |
| Foreign Policy International Interaction | For | Supports a collaborative global initiative to strengthen democratic institutions, and would rejoin several international agreements that the Trump administration withdrew from (for example, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the Paris Climate Agreement). One of Sanders’ top foreign policy priorities would be withdrawing support for Saudi Arabia in the face of their involvement in the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen. He has stated that he would cut off US aid to regimes that he interprets to violate human rights, including Israel. These policies would align with his broader goal of prioritizing human rights in foreign policy. Sanders has expressed intention to recommit to international initiatives such as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, and the Paris Climate Agreement. Overall, Sanders can generally be described to have a non-interventionist approach to international relations; he has a history of opposing US intervention in other countries, including in the cases of Iraq and Venezuela. |
| United Nations power | For | Though he has disagreed with some UN policies, he has supported the UN overall. |
| Nationalism | Against | Has criticized Trump's nationalist tactics. |
| Free Markets | Against | Though he supports it to a degree, he identifies as a democratic socialist Sanders is a self-proclaimed supporter of ‘fair trade'. He has criticized free-trade agreements such as NAFTA and the TPP for causing harm to American workers. Instead of seeking to build trade relationships where the US might be taken advantage of, he would prioritize creating jobs and stimulating American markets. |
| Brexit | Against | Is pro-EU. |
| Affirmative Action | For | Received a 97% approval rating from the NAACP for his support of affirmative action. |
| Government Spending | For | Supports increasing government spending on social programs, but not on defense. |
| Charter Schools | For | Voted for the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998. Believes that they should essentially function the same as public schools, however. |
| Common Core | For | Has voted against legislation that would challenge Common Core standards. Sanders is an advocate of universal access to education. He supports the College For All Act, which would make all public colleges and universities, community colleges, and trade schools tuition-free. He would also seek to cancel all existing student debt and set limits on interest rates on student loans going forward. His education policy would also include expanding access to Pell Grants, increasing funding for work-study programs by up to three times, and investing more resources into historically Black colleges and universities. |
| Clean Energy | For | Believes the US should increase use of sustainable energy sources. Co-sponsored the Green New Deal, which would drastically increase US investments into clean energy. Sanders is supportive of the Green New Deal, a piece of legislation that he actually co-sponsored. If elected president, he would seek to see it signed into law, and would additionally ban fracking and the extraction of fossil fuels from public lands. |
| Religious Freedom | For | Strong advocate for separation of church and state, does not believe that religious freedom includes the right to discriminate. Sanders is a vocal supporter of the separation of church and state, and does not believe that the religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment include the right to discriminate against others. He has committed to oppose any and all legislation that would religious freedom over other individual rights. Despite this exception, Sanders has championed religious freedom in other capacities, including his support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 as a Senator. |
| Separation of Church and State | For | Believes there should be separation between church and state. |
| Slavery Reparations | Nuance | Has said it would depend on the specific reparations proposal. |
| Border Control | Against | Would expand DACA and DAPA, is against a border wall, but supports increased border security measures, would completely restructure ICE. Believes the US has a responsibility to accept refugees and asylum seekers. Sanders’ immigration policy priorities include providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States and expanding the DACA and DAPA programs, which offers protection from deportation to immigrants who were brought to the US unlawfully as children and undocumented parents of American citizens, respectively. Sanders would also hope to see a complete restructuring of ICE and improve oversight on the agency. He would also seek to reverse the Trump-era policies that led to the practice of family separation. Sanders has not advocated for any measures that would limit legal immigration into the United States. |
| Passenger Profiling | Nuance | Is an advocate for racial equality, but has not been outspoken on this particular issue. |
| DACA | For | Would grant citizenship to DREAMers. |
| Sanctuary Cities | For | Believes that sanctuary cities should be protected. |
| Legalizing Marijuana | For | Sanders is supportive of decriminalizing marijuana federally. |