PLS REVIEW: Sanders Hits

Hi everyone,

I wanted to us all on a single thread since this document could serve multiple purposes. Attached are some hits that could either be written or deployed during the next debate on Sanders. Note: these do not include the college and $20 trillion cost of his plans since Policy is working on them. Below is a quick summary of the hits that are in the document. It might be having a call soon to discuss if people think it’s worth it.

Per HRC’s request, we are doing a deeper dive on Sanders’s agriculture record to see if there is anything that could be problematic to Iowa.

(As always, huge credit to the team for their help building these out.)

Also: Tyson has been working on building out Sanders’s muted response to possible tar sand oil traveling through a pipeline that goes through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. He found one letter he signed calling for an environmental study, something Shaheen did as well. So, while he could point to that, his outrage over potential tar sands in this pipeline is nowhere near his opposition to the Keystone Pipeline. We can send around more details once it’s done, but wanted to put that on the radar.

SUMMARY

Labor/Pay to Play/Sugar - Sanders, often thought of as a champion of labor unions, accepted support from a company while it was involved in a bitter labor dispute—locking out union employees for nearly 22 months. In July 2012, he accepted $10,000 in contributions from American Crystal Sugar, while the workers had been locked out for nearly a year due to failed labor negotiations. The workers’ union widely opposed the company’s contract proposal because it could have doubled their out-of-pocket health care costs. At the same time American Crystal Sugar was proposing to cut back on workers’ health benefits, it spent more than $2 million in lobbying money and campaign contributions to politicians like Sanders in order to preserve its favorable sugar commodity program. Sanders voted to protect the sugar program.

Crime Bill –Bernie Sanders’s Presidential Campaign claimed it was researching statements made by Hillary Clinton in support of the 1994 crime bill in order to attack her in the Democratic Primary. But Sanders voted in support of the bill in 1994, and repeatedly spoke in support of it. Then Rep. Sanders criticized opposition to the bill and hoped President Clinton would be able to pass it. Furthermore, in his 2006 campaign for Senate, Sanders’ campaign strongly highlighted Sanders support for the 1994 crime bill. His campaign boasted of the billions Sanders had provided to law enforcement since being elected, and used his support of the 1994 crime bill to prove Sanders was “tough on crime.”

Guns - Sen. Sanders’s progressive bona fides are called into question with his record on reducing gun violence. When he successfully ran for the House in 1990, he got the tacit endorsement of the NRA after pledging not to support the Brady Bill, which included waiting periods to receive weapons. Once in the House, he kept his word, voting against the legislation five times. Although he voted against the bill, he voted for an amendment that created the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which allows people to purchase a weapon after three days even if their background check is incomplete. Later, Sanders, despite wanting to hold essentially every corporation accountable for something (such as fast food companies accountable for obesity), voted to protect gun manufacturers from legal liability. He also voted to strip millions from gun research, something the NRA has wanted to prevent officials from learning about gun violence. (NOTE: This doesn’t include the guns from Vermont to New York)

LGBT (Marriage & Civil Unions) - Sen. Sanders is attacking Secretary Clinton, claiming she has been inconsistent and late to supporting marriage equality. But Sanders is rewriting history on his own record. In 2000, Sanders was reluctant to take a clear stand on civil unions and marriage equality, and did not speak out forcefully on the issue. Sanders called for an end to the divisiveness of the opposition, saying there were “a dozen other issues out there that are as important or more important as that issue.” While other Vermont politicians were moving forward the cause, Sanders remained relatively quiet. Moreover, his oft-touted opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act omits Sanders’s reasoning: he thought DOMA injected the federal government into a states issue.

Repealing Obamacare & Replacing it with State-Run Single Payer - Sen. Sanders has long advocated for a single payer, Medicare-for-all health plan that is administered by the states. His plan would repeal the Affordable Care Act, as well as Medicare, TRICARE, Medicaid, and SCHIP. His proposal would cost roughly $15 trillion. Vermont tried to implement a single payer plan but scrapped it because it would cost too much.

Wall Street (Commodities Futures Modernization Act) - Sen. Sanders repeatedly touts his opposition to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. What he fails to mention is that he voted for the legislation that included the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, signed into law by President Clinton. The Act exempted regulation of credit default swaps and derivatives. Sanders himself blamed the CFMA for Lehman’s bankruptcy. Sanders’s spokesperson said he voted for the bill because it was part of a larger bill that would have shut down the government had it not passed.

Ethanol - Sanders has voted to end ethanol subsidies. He hedged his answer on the Renewable Fuel Standard including ethanol earlier in 2015, but has subsequently come out in support.

Export-Import Bank - Sanders is a long critic of the Export-Import bank, calling it corporate welfare. However, roughly 3,000 small businesses rely on loans from the bank.

Nuclear Energy - Sanders voted for a waste removal compact that moved radioactive waste from Maine and Vermont to a dump site near a tiny community in Sierra Blanca, Texas. Sanders said the compact was “good environmental policy” and said he was “in strong support of the bill.” Critics of the deal said that the site was not only environmentally unsound, but also near a small community that was low income and largely Hispanic. The compact was opposed by LULAC and the NAACP, and a local opponent to the deal called it "environmental racism." 

                NOTE: President Clinton signed the bill in 1997.

Immigration - Sanders’s record on immigration is mixed. While he voted for the 2013 comprehensive bill, he opposed the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive bill. Sanders’s objection was over guest worker program which he said drove down wages for American workers. As recent as this summer, Sanders used similar language about low-skill (and even high-skill) immigrants drive down wages for American citizens. Immigration advocates criticized him for those comments.

Sanders Not Straight on His Tax Plan - Sen. Sanders has not told the American people how much he is going to raise taxes and who is going to pay for them. When confronted on details of his tax plan, he simply says “it’s coming.” When he is asked what the highest rate would be, he demurs.

Sanders Not Straight on His Spending - Sen. Sanders has not told the American people how much his plans will cost and how he will pay for them. When asked for specifics, he demurs. When other estimates show trillions in new spending, he simply rejects them without offering his own estimate.