Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders poised to get back powerful committee chair in new Congress

After Tuesday’s election swept Democrats into control of both houses of Congress, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he intends to get back the powerful post he held two years ago: chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

He’ll use that post, he said in an interview, to try to rescind provisions in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that are slated to push millions of people off Medicaid and to restore the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that helped many people afford health insurance before Congress allowed the subsidies to lapse last year. 

Sanders also wants the committee to “be very aggressive about moving toward ‘Medicare for All,’” he said Thursday. “We’re going to move to do what every other major country does: guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.”

Sanders’ post would likely be the most high-profile example of the expanded power the three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation will enjoy when a new Congress is seated in January. As of Friday afternoon, Democrats — with whom Sanders caucuses — were projected to control at least 54 seats in the Senate and 253 in the House, according to The Associated Press, though some races still hadn’t been called. The election has been widely viewed as a rebuke of Trump and the Republican Party. 

Sanders said he also wants to advance legislation called the PRO Act that would make it easier for workers to join a union and bargain collectively with their employer. The bill passed the House in 2020 and again in 2021 but has repeatedly stalled in the Senate. 

He wants to pass a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $20 per hour, from the current $7.25, he said, as well as legislation that would raise taxes on billionaires to fund low- or no-cost early childhood education and daycare for families nationwide.  

Sanders had two major takeaways from the election: There is “growing revulsion and disgust with the behavior and the policies of the Trump administration,” he said, while people are also deeply worried about how to afford necessities like food and gas. Those rising costs are tied to Trump’s war in Iran, which Sanders said the new Congress needs to end along with “U.S. military aid to the extremist government in Israel.” 

The new Democratic-controlled Congress will need to be good, he said, at “walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time.” 

“Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional actions cannot be ignored. He has got to be held accountable. Period,” Sanders said. “But, on the other hand, if that’s all that we do, and we ignore the pain and anxiety that working families are experiencing all over this country, we will be a failed Congress. So, I think we have to do both.” 

That’s a sentiment shared by Vermont’s two other members of Congress. 

U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., said she plans to push for legislation that builds on the bipartisan housing law Congress enacted earlier this year without Trump’s signature. It included provisions to streamline projects’ environmental reviews, remove restrictions on manufactured home construction, boost access to small-dollar mortgages and limit the number of homes a private equity firm can own. Balint wants to see additional housing reforms designed for rural communities, like many in Vermont, she said. 

Congress also needs to prioritize taking on corporate consolidation across a wide array of industries, she said, including fertilizer production, grocery stores, ticketing platforms and even fire truck manufacturing. 

Balint mentioned the Iran war too and thinks “step one” to ending the conflict is removing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from office. Impeachment proceedings start in the House; Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said he’ll again introduce articles of impeachment against Hegseth as soon as Monday, unless the secretary resigns first. 

“I keep telling people, it’s a target-rich environment. We have to be disciplined,” Balint said.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told VTDigger’s Vermont Conversation podcast last week that although Democrats are right to celebrate their sweeping gains in Congress, the vote “was not a big embrace of Democrats.” Instead, Welch said, “what Democrats have been given by the American people is an opportunity to earn their trust.”

Top priorities for the new Congress should be repealing Trump’s tariffs on goods from Canada and many other countries around the world, he said, as well as taking whatever steps it can to curb the president’s immigration enforcement tactics, which he called violent and cruel. 

Democrats should focus on governing rather than political retribution, Welch told podcast host David Goodman.   

“There will be corruption investigations,” Welch said. But accountability should be “about making life better for everyday people, not a focus on corruption that is about vengeance and payback.”

Olivia Gieger contributed reporting.

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