Bernie Sanders has been a politician for a long time, managing to make a name for himself within his adopted state of Vermont and across the country.
Being best known for his outspoken nature and willingness to point out the flaws even within his own political party, Sanders has become a popular favorite among young voters.
Nothing about this Vermont senator is like the typical American politician, from the way he speaks to the way he looks.
How Tall Is Bernie Sanders?
Bernie Sanders is 6’0”, despite his signature slouch making him appear much shorter than he actually is.
When people are introduced to the senator or see him in person, they’re often shocked by just how tall Sanders actually is.
I will probably post this every year on the anniversary mainly to remind people how tall @BernieSanders is (I’m 5’10”) and definitely not because it’s the only “selfie” I took with the Senator during the entire cycle. pic.twitter.com/MSc3ORXDci
— Bryan Giardinelli (@BreatheNewWinds) July 26, 2021
If you don’t know who John Fetterman is…here he is next to Bernie Sanders, who is 6ft tall. https://t.co/VzGJN2G4OS pic.twitter.com/DbXLhCdinj
— Patrick Fenelon 🌹 (@Patrick_Fenelon) March 8, 2021
My mind cannot comprehend that Senator Bernie Sanders is 6 feet tall
— Mika Alvarez (@mika_alvarez_) October 21, 2021
Bernie Sanders was born on September 8th of 1941 and was the youngest son of a Jewish immigrant from Poland who had moved his family to Brooklyn, New York.
The Sanders family struggled financially, which served as his motivation to become a politician.
His political journey began after he began attending the University of Chicago, where he joined the Congress of Racial Equality to end segregation at the university’s off-campus housing options in 1962.
As a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he would frequently organize sit-ins.
Only a year later, Bernie Sanders would participate in the March on Washington.
By 1964, Sanders had finished his political science degree from the University of Chicago and went on to live on a kibbutz in Israel.
After returning to the United States, Sanders settled down in Vermont and took whatever job he could get.
During this time, Sanders worked as a psychiatric aide, a freelance writer, a filmmaker, and a teacher for low-income students through the free educational program, Head Start.
These jobs further influenced what Sanders felt needed to change around him.
Throughout the 1970s, Sanders ran for the position of Mayor of Burlington as a member of the Liberty Union Party and lost every election.
After leaving the party in 1979, Sanders won his first election by 12 votes in 1981 and became the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
From his earliest years as a mayor, Bernie Sanders was known for his unruly hair and nappy clothing.
Sanders’s unique look is a trait that has stayed with him, even as Vermont’s senator.
On What Committees Does Bernie Sanders Serve?
Bernie Sanders serves on the United States Senate Committees on Budget; Energy & Natural Resources; Environment & Public Works; Veteran Affairs; Health, Education, Labor & Pensions; and the Primary Health & Retirement Security Subcommittee.
Sanders even serves as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Budget and the chairman of the Primary Health & Retirement Security Subcommittee.
Although the senator may have entered his 80s, his age doesn’t slow him down from working on the causes that he feels the most passionate about.
As the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Sanders has recently been looking for ways to expand social security and frequently holds committee hearings to discuss the possibility of offering Medicare to everyone.
In recent years, the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources has focused their attention on topics such as what to do with nuclear waste, how to best clean up public lands, and discussing the rising problems that native Hawaiians have been seeing.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, Bernie Sanders has been voting on topics that include modernizing the Endangered Species Act, conserving wildlife, advancing clean energy research, looking at the infrastructure needs across the country, choosing whether or not to pass acts such as the Use It Act and the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act.
Sanders serves as the chairman of the Primary Health & Retirement Security Subcommittee, a group that has jurisdiction over the majority of organizations that fall under the Department of Health and Human Services.
This includes the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and many more organizations.
The subcommittee also has primary jurisdiction over private retirement plans, railroad retirement, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
Where Is Bernie Sanders Today?
Even after losing his second presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders is still actively working as a politician and has been seen at multiple rallies.
Although many critics believe that Sanders is too old for the positions that he runs for, the Vermont Senator continues to live an active political lifestyle.
Even when Sanders isn’t running for office, he has been known to appear at the rallies of those candidates who he believes would benefit both Vermont and the rest of the United States.
One of the most recent Vermont candidates to receive this level of endorsement from Sanders is State Senator and Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives Becca Balint.
Balint was holding a small campaign throughout Vermont to introduce herself to voters and stopped in Burlington, claiming that she knew she didn’t have the same level of fame as Sanders.
There were only about 50 people in attendance and Sanders’s speech about his belief in the candidate was more than enough to convince attendees to vote for Balint.
When Sanders isn’t helping introduce voters to potential candidates who align with his views, he is speaking at rallies that are focused on workers’ rights and labor movements.
In late August of 2022, Bernie Sanders spoke at a labor movement in Philadelphia that was demanding better working environments and higher pay for their employees.
The rally was held at the Independence Hall Visitor Center, where Sanders explained why he felt that these types of labor movements were “imperative” if the country wanted to move forward.
He also discussed why he felt that it should be easier for workers to get enough support from their bosses or corporate leaders, rather than having to host a rally for every problem.
Did Bernie Sanders Get A Divorce?
Yes, Bernie Sanders has been divorced.
He was previously married to Deborah Shiling Messing before he eventually married Jane O’Meara Sanders.
They were divorced in 1966 after about 18 months of marriage.
Sanders and Messing first met each other in 1963 while they were attending the University of Chicago.
They found that they shared a passion for trying to help the world around them.
After their graduation, the couple went to volunteer at the kibbutz Sha’ar HaAmakim.
When they returned to Vermont, Sanders and Messing decided to hold a wedding in Messing’s family garden in Baltimore on September 6th of 1964.
The couple then moved to Middlesex, Vermont before they decided to dissolve their marriage.
After his divorce from Messing, Sanders went on to date Susan Campell Mott and had his son, his only child, Levi Sanders, in 1969.
Despite being his ex-wife, Deborah Shiling Messing is still a supporter of Sanders as a political candidate.
Bernie Sanders wouldn’t meet Jane O’Meara Sanders until 1981 when she had to organize a debate for the Mayoral candidates.
Once O’Meara heard Sanders speak, she fell in love with the way he was so direct and didn’t try to be someone he wasn’t just for the potential of making it into the governing office.
During the debate, O’Meara sat in the second row and locked eyes with Sanders multiple times.
Sanders didn’t make a move until the victory party celebrating his election as mayor, where he asked O’Meara to dance with him.
Bernie Sanders and his wife were married in 1988, which was only two years before Sanders would become a member of Congress.
Similar to her husband, Jane O’Meara Sanders was motivated to join the world of politics due to the problems her family faced as a child, revolving mostly around health care accessibility.
Who Has Ran Against Bernie Sanders?
Bernie Sanders has run against many politicians throughout his extensive political career, with the most recent candidates to run against the Vermont Senator including Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election.
Four years before that point, Sanders ran in a Presidential Election for the first time.
Although his grassroots movement of young voters had made him more popular as a politician than ever, Sanders lost the Democratic primary to Hilary Clinton and decided to endorse her on July 12th of 2016 without formally suspending his campaign.
In the 2018 General Election for United States Senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders won as an Independent candidate with 67.3% of the votes.
Some of the other candidates in this election included Lawrence Zupan, Brad Peacock, Russell Beste, Edward Gilbert Jr, Folasade Adeluola, Jon Svitavsky, Reid Kane, and Bruce Busa.
Sanders had consistently been voted Senator of Vermont by large margins since 2006 when he ran against Republican candidate Rich Tarrant.
With 65.4% of all votes, Sanders was putting his past of winning by small margins behind him.
In 2012, Bernie Sanders ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate.
Sanders would claim 71.1% of the votes in the general election when going up against Republican candidate John MacGovern, who had 24.9% of the votes.
When Bernie Sanders first won the election for the United States House of Representatives in 1990, he ran as an Independent candidate against Democratic candidate Delores Sandoval, Republican candidate Peter Smith, and Liberty Union candidate Pete Diamondstone.
Sanders managed to win with 56% of the votes and would continue to consistently win the election to the House of Representatives until he decided to run for Senator instead in 2006.
Some of his former opponents include Lewis Young, Tom Philbin, John Caroll, and Susan Sweetser.
Is There A Maximum Age For Presidential Candidates?
No, there is not a legally set maximum age for a presidential candidate.
The only age requirement needed to run in the presidential election is being over the age of 35, which was set in place in an attempt to ensure that future presidents would have reached a certain level of life experience and maturity.
While it has gotten easier for people to live longer and healthier lives, there is still no way of denying that a person’s physical and mental abilities are eventually going to begin deteriorating.
With the recent trend in older presidents such as Joe Biden and Donald Trump, some Americans fear that old age has affected their abilities to serve as the President of the United States.
If a president’s age were to begin to affect their ability to govern the nation, the only tool the rest of the American governing body has to remove them from office is the 25th Amendment.
The 25th Amendment allows sick presidents to step down and allow their vice presidents to fill in their roles.
The only way to enact this process is for the president to voluntarily step down or for the vice president and the majority of the Cabinet to give notice to the Congress that the Vice President will be taking on the office.
Although the process may sound simple, it is rare that a president will feel that they aren’t suitable for office anymore, and it’s uncommon for the Cabinet to go against the wishes of the president in these types of situations.
Many people believe that an age limit for presidential candidates should be put in place, with most people agreeing on a maximum age of about 70.
Donald Trump was 70 when he became president, but Joe Biden is the oldest winning presidential candidate, having won just weeks before his 78th birthday.
Will Bernie Sanders Run For President in 2024?
No, Bernie Sanders will not run for president again in 2024 if President Joe Biden decides to run for re-election.
Sanders would even be willing to back Biden as a presidential candidate, but not even Biden has stated for certain whether he would run again.
The Vermont Senator believes that it is too early to say what potential presidential candidates will be running in 2024.
Despite believing that it is too early to know for certain, Sanders still believes there is a chance that Biden will run for re-election like the majority of former presidents.
The idea of the elderly Senator running for president again may have been spurred on by a CNN interview with New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in which she was asked if she would back Biden in the 2024 elections.
Representative Ocasio-Cortez gave the vague answer: “I think if the President has a vision, then that’s something certainly we’ll entertain and examine when the time comes.”
From Ocasio-Cortez’s perspective, it seems that not even Biden is certain of what the future holds.
If President Biden decides not to run for re-election, that likely means that Bernie Sanders will once again try his hand at becoming the President of the United States.
Should Sanders win the presidential election, he will beat Biden’s record as the oldest President to take office by half a decade.
There are more than plenty of candidates who will run in the Presidential election whether Joe Biden decides to run for a second term or not, but few candidates will have the same level of star power as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
Although neither has announced their plans for the election, their supporters are eagerly waiting for the day that they run for the Oval Office.
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