Bernie Sanders is currently in his third term as US Senator from Vermont. He announced his run for President on February 19, 2019. (For debate info, visit our home page.)
Personal info:
Birthdate: September 8, 1941
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
Birth name: Bernard Sanders
Father: Eli Sanders, a paint salesman
Mother: Dorothy (Glassberg) Sanders
Marriages: Jane (O'Meara) Sanders (1988-present); Deborah (Shiling) Messing (married and divorced in the 1960s)
Children: With Susan Mott: Levi;stepchildren with Jane (O'Meara) Sanders: Heather, Carina, David
Education:Attended Brooklyn College, 1959-1960; University of Chicago, B.A., 1964
Religion:Jewish, though tells the Washington Post he is "not actively involved with organized religion."
Campaign website: https://berniesanders.com
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Other Facts (Wikipedia and CNN)
- Elected Mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981, serves 4 terms.
- In 1990, elected as an independent to the US House of Representatives, and serves 8 terms, the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history.
- Elected as US Senator from Vermont in 2006, and reelected in 2012 and 2018.
- As an independent, Sanders worked out a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership in which he agreed to vote with the Democrats on all procedural matters unless the Democratic whip, Dick Durbin, agreed that he need not (a request rarely made or granted). In return, he was allowed to keep his seniority and received the committee seats that would have been available to him as a Democrat; in 2013–14, he was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs (during the Veterans Health Administration scandal).
Links to other candidate profiles are on our 2020 Candidates page.
