OPINION | This article contains opinion. This site is licensed to publish this content.
Politico reports, Bernie Sanders is hoping to be a part of Joe Biden’s Presidential Administration.
Sanders has expressed a particular interest in becoming Biden’s Labor secretary.
“I can confirm he’s trying to figure out how to land that role or something like it. He, personally, does have an interest in it,” Former Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said.
Senator Bernie Sanders declined to confirm or deny suggesting himself for the position.
“Right now I am focused on seeing that Biden is elected president. That’s what my main focus is,” Sanders stated.
“He’s 100 percent in Joe Biden’s court,” said Shakir. “We’ve had a good working relationship with the Biden team and I expect we’ll maintain that all the way through.”
“It would be great to have a unity government that takes into account that progressives are a pretty healthy portion of the electorate,” Shakir said.
“Heeding that would be good, but if Joe Biden wins, he rightly has a mandate to move in whatever direction he chooses.”
More from Politico:
When asked about Sanders’ potential role, a spokesperson for Biden’s transition team repeated the transition’s stock line: that they are “not making any personnel decisions pre-election.”
Since ending his second bid for the Democratic nomination earlier this year, Sanders has thrown his support behind Biden, hitting the campaign trail for him in Michigan and New Hampshire, collaborating with him to create “unity task forces” to make recommendations on everything from health care to climate change, and taking the stage at the Democratic National Convention to urge progressives to back the former vice president.
The news of Sanders’ interest in the job is certain to cheer the Democratic left, which has been pushing for progressives to take senior roles in a potential Biden administration.
“He’d be terrific,” said Robert Reich, a former Labor secretary in the Clinton administration.
Having Sanders in a senior post could also help balance out any consternation over more moderate picks — or even a Republican — that Biden’s team is already considering for other spots in the administration.
Sanders could find support from the labor movement as well, where union officials expect to have some influence over Biden’s pick to lead the DOL.
— Advertisement — The Vermont senator — who throughout his decadeslong career has called for laws to raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to organize — won significant support from local unions and rank-and-file members in the 2016 Democratic primary race, even as most major national unions endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton.
