LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
When the blue smoke and mirrors cleared after the American elections just a few
weeks ago, a Democratic Socialist had won a seat in the US House. Vermont will
be represented by Bernie Sanders. He was the mayor of Burlington for eight
years, an iconoclast who will sit with the Democrats in the House. One of
Sanders' priorities will be to reform the election process. `Americans don't
vote,' he says, `because they've lost faith in
their government.'
BERNIE SANDERS: They don't believe that the government represents their
interests anymore. They look at, you know, Bush and they look at Dukakis, they
look at their Democrat and Republican running in their congressional district
and they say, `It's all very interesting but it doesn't matter to me. My life
is in trouble, and there's nothing that these guys are going to do to change
that.'
WERTHEIMER: Well, what if they're right?
SANDERS: Well, they are right to a large degree. I am not suggesting...
WERTHEIMER: Well, what do you do about it...
SANDERS: Well, OK, what you do about it is begin the very long and arduous
process of making the government responsive to needs of ordinary Americans. So
what that tells me is--is immediately, and in an area that I will get to work
on as soon as I can, is to say wealthy people, large corporations, cannot be
allowed to buy politicians anymore. That means limitations on the amount of
money that can be spent, that means public financing of elections, that means
making radio and television time available free to all candidates. That's one
way to open the political process.
WERTHEIMER: Bernie Sanders, I don't have to tell you that it's very difficult
to convince members of Congress that the system that made possible their own
elections should be changed.
SANDERS: You're absolutely right. For the members of Congress, it's a pretty
good deal. If you get elected without any opposition, you don't have to
campaign. You've got a lifetime job and it's a lot of fun here. I don't know
how many members of Congress I will be able to convince, but I think what
we--really all of us--must understand is that Congress itself, as presently
constituted, is not capable of dealing with the very difficult problems facing
this country. They're not able to do it.
WERTHEIMER: You know, as I'm sure you've noticed, when you walk into the--to

 the Capitol building, there's a sort of peculiar smell to the place. It's sort
of Southern, air-conditioning, dusty smell. Old smoke-filled rooms smell, and
you see members of Congress, and after they've been gone for the winter
session, they come in and they sort of take this deep breath, and they're back
and it's their real place. And they love it and...
SANDERS: Mm-hmm. That's right.
WERTHEIMER: They come around after years--after a few years of--to the point
where they say, `If I take their money and I--they can't buy my vote with it,
but I'd need to take their money in order to continue to be here...'
SANDERS: Uh-huh. That's right.
WERTHEIMER: Everybody's waiting, as I'm sure you must know, to see how long it
takes that virus that floats down the halls of the Capitol building to infect
you.
SANDERS: Well, all that I can say is that I was mayor of the city of
Burlington for eight years, and I know every other month there would be some
article in the paper about how Bernie Sanders is going to sell out or I'm this
and that--you know, and after eight years the people who own the state of
Vermont, who--who hated my guts when I first got elected, they hated me maybe a
little bit more when I left. You know, so that's all, we will wait and see
what--what happens, but I do not expect terribly many corporations to be
contributing to my campaigns or terribly many wealthy people to giving me
financial help.
WERTHEIMER: You now, I'm sure you've heard discouraging words, not just from
me, but from lots of people about--about how, you know, everybody comes in
raring for a fight and it doesn't take very long for them to find out how tough
it is to stay mad. What's your own judgment about--about your
possibilities--about what kind of a chance you have to really make a difference?
SANDERS: These changes are not going to take place unless, literally, tens and
tens of millions of people begin to stand up and fight for their rights. Now,
for example, there are two nations in the entire industrialized world, South
Africa and the United States, that do not have national health care. Now we can
discuss the issue of health care in back rooms here and on this or that
committee for the next 30 years and thats fine. The way you will get national
health care is when the unions, when the senior citizens, when ordinary people
say, `Wait a second. The health care system is now out of control. We need
national health care. We're not going to support any candidate for Congress who
is not prepared to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies and
the AMA and the medical equipment suppliers.'

 So--what I--the main point that I'm making is--and I've made it a dozen
times--there are real limits to what you can do in Congress because of the
conservative nature of this body, the fact that you have people here who are
entrenched--who have been here for years, everything equal, might stay here for
years. The only way the change--real change takes place is when the people
begin to stand up and fight. We saw that in the civil rights movement. It was
not, you know, outstanding legislators, although I'm sure there was some here
in Congress who made that happen, it was millions and millions of black people
and their white allies who stood up and fought. The women's movement and the
changes that we've seen in that area did not come from within Congress. It came
from the streets, and it came from the people.
WERTHEIMER: What you're telling me is that all of these battles were won
outside the Congress. So what are you doing inside the Congress?
SANDERS: You fight your fights outside and inside simultaneously. I can play a
role in this building, fighting for the best legislation that I can. It does
make a difference if we are able to have a progressive tax system and the rich
start paying their fair share of taxes and--and we can lower taxes on--on poor
people and the middle class. That makes a difference. Is that enough? It's not
enough. But it makes a difference. To the degree that in any one of a number of
ways we can broaden the political debate to suggest that the choice needn't be
between Tweedledee or Tweedledum or raising the minimum wage by 10 cents an
hour, that we can begin to talk about real workers' rights and real worker
empowerment, new approaches to the environment. I mean, there is no one simple
solution, but I think by broadening debate, involving more people in the
process, showing people that there are real alternatives to the Democratic and
Republican parties, we're playing a role.
WERTHEIMER: Socialist Bernie Sanders is the new member of the House of
Representatives from Vermont.
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