As he rails against the political power of the “billionaire class,” there is no fatter target for the scorn of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) than the Koch brothers.
In his stump speeches, Sanders, the surging Democratic presidential hopeful, decries the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Kochs are spending to influence U.S. elections and, in Sanders’s view, turning the country into “an oligarchy.”
On Monday, however, the Vermont senator, a self-described “democratic socialist,” acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, there is one issue on which he can work with the Republican benefactors: criminal justice reform.
“I am prepared to work with anybody who is working in good faith on that very, very important issue,” Sanders said during an appearance hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
Sanders’s assessment came in response to a student questioner who noted that the Koch brothers have been spending money to advocate prison reforms. Among the concerns they’ve expressed are the high levels of incarceration in the country and sentencing disparities that affect the least well off.
On the campaign trail, Sanders devotes a section of his stump speech to the country’s “broken criminal justice system,” calling it an outrage that the United States imprisons more people than China, a country with several times the population.
On Monday, Sanders said policymakers need to address the “huge number of nonviolent people in jail” and abolish so-called “mandatory minimums,” which take away the discretion of judges to be more lenient in sentencing based on individual circumstances.
The senator also made very clear that his overarching view of the Koch brothers remains unchanged. Sanders branded them “extremist right wing” and questioned their efforts to lobby for tax breaks benefiting the wealthy.
“They are a very destructive force in American society,” Sanders said.
His visit to the University of Chicago was a homecoming. Sanders’s graduated from there in 1964, a fact noted by the host of Monday’s event, David Axelrod, the former senior adviser to President Obama who now serves as director of the Institute of Politics.
“Every once in awhile, we like to bring back an alumnus to talk about what they’re doing,” Axelrod joked when introducing Sanders during an event that was live-streamed over the Internet.
Sanders, 74, also reminisced about college years, saying he had not been a stellar student but “learned a lot from off-campus activities” and discovered democratic socialism, the philosophy that continues to guide his political career.
While a student, Sanders was also active in the civil rights movement, and his activities included leading a protest of a segregated campus housing policy. He was also charged with resisting arrest during a demonstration against segregation in Chicago’s public schools.
On Monday, he praised "young people who pick up the torch," urging students to be involved in pressing for societal changes.
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