Sanders replacing top staffers with campaign aides

[left-of-center2012]

Former aides to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign are moving into top positions in his Senate office as he begins his new role as Budget Committee chair, according to a person familiar with the moves.

Sanders’s current chief of staff Caryn Compton is leaving his office and being replaced by Misty Rebik, who served as his Iowa state director and executive director of his campaign committee. Sanders’s legislative director Lori Kearns is moving into a new role on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s primary health and retirement security subcommittee. And Ari Rabin-Havt, who served as deputy campaign manager for Sanders’s 2020 bid, is stepping in as the senator’s new legislative director.

Sanders’s current communications director Keane Bhatt is also expected to step down. In another move, Sanders is bringing in Bill Dauster, who served as a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), as chief counsel for the Budget Committee. Dauster confirmed his new role in a tweet on Wednesday night.

Sanders is moving into the top job on the Senate Budget Committee ... It puts Sanders at the helm of one of the upper chamber’s most influential committees and gives him control over the budget reconciliation process. With that power, the progressive Vermont senator will hold significant sway in Biden’s plans for taxes and government spending.

The decision to move former top campaign aides into his Senate office signals that Sanders’s 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination may have been his last. Sanders, 79, has already acknowledged that it’s unlikely he will make a run for the White House again in 2024, telling The Washington Post last year that the odds of another presidential campaign are “very, very slim.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/537320-sanders-replacing-top-staffers-with-campaign-aides

[kristofarian]

1. kinda Nice having Sen. KkKonnell so

Gone.

let The PEOPLE'S
Business Begin.

[SMC22307]

2. Are we supposed to be outraged about this? (n/t)

[frazzled]

3. Depends on if they have any experience with budgets

(and not just campaign fundraising budgets). I don't blame him for firing the previous staff, but I would hope that they would be replaced by people with extensive legislative and budgetary experience, not just political favors.

[Laelth]

5. It doesn't look like he's firing anybody.

He’s moving people around (shutting down his permanent campaign staff) and providing his loyalists with jobs supporting his new role as Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He’s taking care of his loyal people while signaling that his campaign office is closed. He doesn’t intend to run for President in 2024.

-Laelth

[frazzled]

12. I was saying

that placing former campaign staff into the budget committee as aides is only okay insofar as they might have the appropriate experience, and are not merely "loyal." Been there, done that for the past four years.

[Laelth]

15. I would fully expect that ...

Senator Sanders is choosing his advisers in various roles carefully. I have no reason to believe that he would offer a job to someone who was incapable of performing the necessary duties of the job.

-Laelth

[frazzled]

16. I'll reserve judgment

I just know that his economic-budget proposals during the last campaign were roundly criticized, even by progressive economic institutes, for not adding up and for lacking the proper projections. I hope the new staff are more in the administrative capacity than an advisory or research one.

[left-of-center2012]

7. Why would we be outraged ?

[orwell]

4. As long as they know what they are doing...

...he can hire any staff he feels comfortable with.

[Demsrule86]

6. why do you need campaign people?

He may run again for the Senate although I would rather get someone younger in there because there is a GOP governor in Vermont and Sen. Sanders did have a heart attack...but he won't run for any other office. I have come to appreciate Sen. Sanders since 16 when honestly I actively disliked him. He helped us defeat Trump.

Updated, since another poster indicated Sanders did not fire his aides, I took the 'heartless' part out. He moved people around which actually is a nice thing to do.

[Doreen]

8. Are the people he put in place actually qualified for those positions?

I hope he is not pulling a trump and just putting people in simply because they are on his side.

[Autumn]

11. Bernie is nothing like Trump and he will pick qualified people. To compare him to Trump is

a nasty thing for a "democrat" to do. I hope that's not what you were doing.

[Celerity]

14. +1

[Nanjeanne]

9. These are great additions. Bill Dauster is an economist and lawyer that will be really

important now that Sanders heads Budget. He has great experience since he worked as aide to Harry Reid on Budget Committee.

Ari Rabin-Havt has been with sanders for years and shares his legislative priorities. He has more than 16 years in politics and nonprofits. Sanders previous legislative director will be great addition to Health, Education, Labor, Pensions Committee.

Don’t know much about Misty Rebik but I’m sure as chief of staff Sanders has confidence in her and that relationship is key.

[Caliman73]

10. Here is a bit on Rebik. Taken from Ballotpedia

Prior to working for the 2018 Sanders campaign, Rebik worked as the event and stewardship coordinator One Iowa, regional director of strategic partnerships and development for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, executive director of the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa, and volunteered with AmeriCorps.[2]

Rebik's previous campaign experience was working as campaign manager for Cathy Glasson's (D) gubernatorial primary campaign in 2018.[2]

Rebik graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in international/global studies and Spanish, and an M.S. in city/urban, community, and regional planning.

Looks like she has some experience managing staff and pulling people together to coordinate goals and tasks. When I was studying for my degree in public administration, we had to take some city planning classes. Lots of work on budgets, cost analysis, and other related concepts.

[Nanjeanne]

13. Thanks. Sounds like she will be great as chief of staff.