Bernie Sanders’ Progressive Priorities Risk Labor, Health Agenda

The next month poses a major test of whether Bernie Sanders’ chairmanship of a key Senate committee will achieve the balancing act of trying to do big things, with calls from Republicans to pursue joint efforts.

Accomplishing bipartisan work during the tumultuous weeks of September already presents a large hurdle as several must-pass legislative items are due on the floor and leaders scramble to avoid a government shutdown.

Sanders has spent almost nine months leading the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is known for its bipartisan approach to legislation despite having jurisdiction over such contentious policies as health insurance benefits and the minimum wage. But under Sanders, the panel has canceled markups, advanced partisan legislation with little chance of becoming law, and grilled leaders of corporate America—all of which has concerned GOP committee members about the chairman’s priorities and direction.

The HELP portfolio has long been at the core of the progressive Vermont Independent’s agenda. Next month will reveal whether Sanders can manage his idealistic goals and the constraints of a split Congress to cut key deals on issues like pushing billions of federal dollars into primary care and promoting workforce development.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to reporters outside the White House on July 17 after meeting with President Joe Biden on workers’ rights and labor issues.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The first months of his tenure as HELP chairman have gone according to plan, Sanders said in a wide-ranging interview last week on the committee’s work. He said he won’t settle for incremental steps.

“It’s very easy to move quickly without a bunch of contention if you do the same old thing,” Sanders said. “If you want to reauthorize things and make minuscule changes or no changes at all, that is not difficult to do.”

“I don’t want to tinker around the edges, we want to make real progress,” Sanders said. “Bernie will continue to be Bernie.”

Critics of Sanders’ style say he’s wasted time and passed up opportunities to find compromise with Republicans.

“He likes to fight for things that he believes in that have no chance of actually passing because he does not understand the process of getting something into law,” HELP committee member Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said in an interview after a particularly contentious markup in June. “To get something passed requires Republicans and Democrats to work together. He has not been willing to do that in his career. He’s not willing to do that on the committee.”

Hits and Misses

Sanders has had some wins to advance long-standing priorities while at the helm of the HELP committee, advancing bills to revamp US labor laws, and holding public hearings with pharmaceutical executives and former Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz—whom Sanders blames for “busting” unions. The busy agenda has the progressive’s allies singing his praises, while his Republican counterparts question whether he’s spending too much time on pursuits the chamber likely won’t pass.

Sanders has reassured colleagues that he believes the many bipartisan tasks ahead for the panel—including reauthorizations for key federal health programs due on Sept. 30 and workforce development measures members of both parties are seeking—will be done in addition to his other priorities.

But delays for both labor and health-focused initiatives undercut that promise.

In July, Sanders introduced a bill to spend $20 billion a year for five years on health centers and training programs for doctors, dentists, and other providers.

He scheduled a markup of his bill for later that month, but canceled it in favor of a bipartisan bill with Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). He’s also included Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), head of the Senate Finance Committee, on the issue.

Marshall said in an interview he agrees with Sanders that a big increase for health centers is possible. He suggested it could be paired with pharmacy benefit manager legislation because overhauling the way these intermediaries work has drawn bipartisan Senate support and doing so can reduce government spending. Wyden’s Finance panel also shares jurisdiction over the issue.

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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member on the HELP Committee, has said he too wants an expansion of the health centers program, but he doesn’t support how Sanders seeks to offset the cost of doing so by banning certain hospital fees and changing a key drug approval rule.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to pass something out of our committee,” said Cassidy, who sees a more-modest 5% funding increase for health centers that cleared a House panel (H.R. 3281) as more realistic. “There’s still a big gulf between the two sides.”

A day after the health center bill’s markup was canceled, a markup of workforce development bills was also postponed. The issue stopping the committee from moving forward with the legislation is continued disagreement between Democrats and Republicans over apprenticeships.

Sanders shakes hands with Howard Schultz, at right, as the former Starbucks CEO arrives to testify about the company’s labor and union practices before the Senate HELP committee on March 29, 2023.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

While unions and Democrats have long favored an expansion of registered apprenticeships, Republicans have pushed for Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs—a Trump-era program that the Biden Department of Labor rescinded in 2022.

Republicans prefer IRAPs for their flexibility and greater employer participation. Democrats see them as unreliable compared with the 85-year-old registered apprenticeship model.

Sanders remains confident he’ll find agreement on these health and labor issues and mark up legislation that will make it to the president’s desk. Prescription drugs, primary health care, and apprenticeship programs can win bipartisan support, he said in the interview.

Style Changes Here to Stay

Sanders replaced Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), a member of Democratic leadership now tapped with striking deals on government spending bills as head of the Appropriations Committee. Sanders became HELP chair after stints leading the Veterans’ Affairs and Budget committees.

As VA chairman, he crafted a major bipartisan deal with then-Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain to revamp veterans’ health-care systems—which Sanders’s allies often cite as chops for his legislative know-how.

The Budget panel doesn’t mark up as much legislation as other committees, because the Appropriations Committee drafts spending bills. But Sanders claims credit for influencing much of the American Rescue Plan (Public Law 117-2), the Democratic Covid relief bill, when he chaired the panel, because his committee crafted the legislative framework for that deal.

The panel dug into its work in February by immediately taking up some of the areas of bipartisan agreement among members, such as health-care workforce shortages. But Sanders’ atypical managerial style and agenda began to emerge quickly after he launched a probe into Starbucks for its handling of unionizing efforts at its cafes across the country.

Sanders sent letters to the company and its then-CEO Schultz asking him to appear before the committee for testimony. After Schultz initially refused, Sanders threatened to subpoena Schultz, and the executive eventually testified, days after stepping down from his post.

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The chairman continued with his agenda, filling up the committee schedule with hearings on progressive priorities such as the state of unionization in the country and the child care affordability crisis. And while Republicans disagreed over the content of these hearings, internal concerns about the overall management of the committee’s time began to bleed into the public.

Most Senate markups tend to be finely tuned behind doors by staff of both the chair and ranking member ahead of time. But at a May markup of bills to address pharmacy benefit managers, Cassidy complained that Sanders was keeping Republicans out of the loop.

“At some point process matters,” Cassidy said.

After a lengthy back-and-forth between committee members over the procedure, the markup was postponed and the legislation eventually approved by the committee weeks later.

Beyond the delayed markups and partisan investigations, Republicans sounded the loudest alarms when Sanders scheduled a markup on longstanding Democratic legislation to overhaul US labor laws, establish paid sick time, and tackle the gender pay gap.

“We didn’t have this issue when Patty Murray was leading the committee,” Romney said. “Sen. Sanders is taking a different tack.”

Sanders admits he contrasts with previous committee chairs.

“I am not going to deny that I do think differently than other senators might,” he said, noting he deeply respected Murray’s tenure at the panel. “I think tomorrow, we can get unanimous support for 100 bills, but so what if they don’t do anything to improve life for the American people?”

Aiming High

Democrats on the panel acknowledged Sanders’ different managerial style, but believe he is ultimately more than willing to reach bipartisan agreement.

“Bernie has a negotiation style. He puts out what he wants and he says ‘you show me what you want,’” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), another member of the HELP panel. “He is not saying ‘take it or leave it.’”

Sanders’ energetic approach generated praise from those on the left who are glad to see these economic priorities featured in the Senate even if they can’t immediately pass.

“It is really crucial to keep up the drumbeat,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “This is what the economy needs, and so if things were just to be completely dropped until there was a time when it could pass the Senate, then things would not be ready to go.”

Sanders has been “super successful” in leveraging public opinion to shape legislation by aiming high on bills knowing they’ll eventually get compromised down, said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works and a long-time Sanders ally.

“Whenever you aim low, you get compromised down to zero,” he said.