17 Socialists in Congress

Plenty of senators are just as far to the left as Vermont’s proud socialist — or farther.

Only 17?

April 21, 2009 4:00 AM

By Michael G. Franc
Sen. Bernie Sanders wants Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) to start naming names. So reports Politico’s Glenn Thrush.

He was referring to the “usually soft-spoken” senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, who had told a Birmingham reporter that there are 17 “socialists” in Congress. Bachus’s assertion prompted what Thrush characterized as “cries of McCarthyism in the lefty blogosphere” — especially when he named only one lawmaker: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who happily calls himself a “democratic socialist.”

“Has Spencer released his list yet?” Sanders joked. “Everybody’s waiting with bated breath. . . . I think at the very least he has to tell people what his definition of socialism is.” At the risk of inviting the Left’s wrath, let me help flesh out a list.

As for that elusive definition of “socialism,” I’ll use as a barometer the voting record compiled by the Senate’s only avowed man of the people — the distinguished gentleman from Vermont himself. That is, we can presume the more often a lawmaker votes with Congress’s lone acknowledged socialist, the greater his or her comfort level with the sort of policies he embraces...
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