Although the title of the article tries to downplay his accomplishments, the NYT has finally put a positive article about Bernie Sanders’ accomplishments as a member of Congress on its front page:
For Sanders, a Big Agenda Pursued by Modest Means
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 — enacting his agenda piece by piece, in politically digestible chunks with few sweeping legislative achievements in a quarter-century in Congress.
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.
Of course, some of us already knew that Bernie was the Amendment King, and that his victories were not always so modest:
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.
One of the important things highlighted by the article was Sanders’ consistency and persistence in focusing on working-class Americans, income inequality, veterans, students, and the environment, even working across the aisle to get things done:
“The reason he has been so successful is that he built very strong left-right coalitions, ” said Warren Gunnels, a longtime policy adviser 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.”
Bernie was about the 99% long before even Occupy Wall Street (although of course OWS raised the country’s awareness in a way that Bernie hadn’t done at that point) — whether he gets the nomination or not, he has kept the spotlight on economic injustice through his breakthrough campaign.
“Bernie has been talking about income inequality since 1981,” Mr. Welch said. “And now that is a message whose time has come.”