Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders is the junior U.S. Senator from Vermont. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman and Sanders are the only two Senators unaffiliated with either major party.http://www.politicalcentrist.com/Political%20Centrist%20News%20and%20Analysis%20page%203.htm

On March 3, 2009, while Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke at a hearing in front of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders demanded that the central bank publicly disclose the names of financial institutions which have borrowed from the federal government. Sanders introduced legislation which would mandate the central bank to publicly disclose the information and called it "unacceptable" for the government to risk public tax dollars without revealing the banks.http://uk.reuters.com/article/americasRegulatoryNes/idUKN0349765020090303

In December 2010, a filibuster speech was delivered by Sanders that has been nicknamed the "Berniebuster." The speech was critical of political lobbying by corporations, who reportedly spent nearly $3.5 billion lobbying politicians in 2009.http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/12/sen-bernie-sanders-cites-center.html

Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn, and after graduating from the University of Chicago in 1964, moved to Vermont. He first became involved in politics with the Liberty Union Party, a political party formed in opposition to the Vietnam War that describes itself as a nonviolent Socialist party.http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Bernie_Sanders

In 1981, Sanders ran for Mayor of Burlington and won the election by 12 votes. In 1990, Sanders ran for Vermont's only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and in an upset, defeated incumbent Peter P. Smith. In 2006, Sanders ran for the Senate seat vacated by Jim Jeffords and won.http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Bernie_Sanders Sanders caucuses with the Democrats and votes with them most of the time.http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Bernie_Sanders