Bernie Sanders opposed the appointment of Tom Vilsack to resume his Obama-era role as secretary of the US Department of Agriculture on Tuesday. The Vermont senator and former Democratic presidential candidate joined six Republicans in voting against Vilsack’s confirmation during a Capitol hearing, where he was finally sworn in with almost unanimous support. The Senate confirmed Vilsack as head of the USDA, for the second time, by a margin of 92–7.
Sanders was the only Democratic senator who did not vote in favor of Vilsack’s confirmation, alongside Republican congressmen Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida and Dan Sullivan of Alaska. His vote marked the first time that a member of the Senate Democratic bench was opposed to one of the nominees for President Joe Biden’s office.
A progressive and dedicated environmental advocate, Sanders took his seat in the Senate for the first time in 2007, after serving in the United States House of Representatives for nearly two decades. In a statement issued by his office after Vilsack’s confirmation hearing, which Newsweek obtained on Tuesday afternoon, Sanders noted that his vote against did not reflect personal feelings about the new Cabinet member, but rather concerns about his approach to politics.
“I have known Tom Vilsack for many years and I look forward to working with him as our new secretary of agriculture,” he said in the statement. “I objected to your confirmation because at a time when corporate consolidation of agriculture is rampant and family farms are being wiped out, we need a secretary who is prepared to vigorously assume corporate power in the sector.”
“I heard from many family farmers in Vermont and across the country that they think that’s not what Tom did when he last served on this job,” the statement concluded.
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After eight years as governor of Iowa, Vilsack has already led the USDA from 2009 to 2017, during the term of former President Barack Obama at the White House. While some of the major labor organizations, such as the National Farmers Union, endorsed Vilsack’s return to the job under Biden’s administration, others were suspicious of his ties to Big Agriculture.
When reports of Vilsack’s appointment to the secretary of agriculture emerged in December, Mitch Jones, the policy director for Food and Water Watch, an environmental group, suggested that “Vilsack has made a career out of the whims of corporate agriculture giants – some of he has been working on – although he has not fought for struggling family farmers at every step. “