Bernie Sanders was in the Senate.
Bernie Sanders . Sanders became the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee in January 2015 ; he had previously been chair of the Senate Veterans ' Affairs Committee for two years . After settling in Vermont in 1968 , Sanders ran unsuccessful third-party campaigns for governor and U.S. senator in the early to mid-1970s . He served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 .