Bernie Sanders

Sanders was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while attending the University of Chicago in the early 1960s. He joined the 1963 March on Washington and witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. He later joined an influx of counterculture, back-to-the-land migrants to Vermont and held various jobs, including as a carpenter and filmmaker.

Running as an independent in 1981, he upset the longtime incumbent mayor of Burlington, Vermont, by 10 votes and ran the city for the rest of the decade. Sanders won Vermont’s lone congressional seat in 1990 and was elected to the Senate in 2006. He remained an independent, but caucuses with Democrats and serves as ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

Sanders gained attention in December 2010 when he took to the Senate floor and thundered for more than eight hours about a tax-cut package and what he called Congress’ failure to provide enough money for education and social programs. With trademark sarcasm, he mocked the rich, yelling: “How can I get by on one house? I need five houses, 10 houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world!” The speech was so popular it crashed the Senate video server and was later published.

– The Associated Press