Bernie Sanders is serving his third term in the U.S. Senate after winning re-election in 2018. His previous 16 years in the House of Representatives make him the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history.
Born in 1941 in Brooklyn, Sanders attended James Madison High School, Brooklyn College and the University of Chicago. After graduating in 1964, he moved to Vermont. In 1981, he was elected (by 10 votes) to the first of four terms as mayor of Burlington. Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Hamilton College in upstate New York before his 1990 election as Vermont’s at-large member in Congress.
The Almanac of American Politics called Sen. Bernie Sanders a “practical” and “successful legislator.” In the House, he was dubbed the “amendment king” for passing more roll-call amendments than any other member. “He accomplishes this on the one hand by being relentlessly active and on the other by using his status as an independent to form left-right coalitions,” Matt Taibbi wrote in Rolling Stone. As the veterans committee chairman, Sanders was able “to bridge Washington’s toxic partisan divide and cut one of the most significant deals in years,” Humberto Sanchez wrote for Congressional Quarterly.