In the wake of Bernie Sanders’ ground­break­ing pro­gres­sive cam­paign, Cordes has set her sights on some­thing even big­ger — the Ver­mont House of Representatives.

As pres­i­dent of the 2,000-member Ver­mont Fed­er­a­tion of Nurs­es and Health Pro­fes­sion­als (VFNHP), Cordes suc­cess­ful­ly fought for paid sick leave, improved health care leg­is­la­tion, an end to insur­ance dis­crim­i­na­tion against trans­gen­dered patients and increased over­sight of for-prof­it hos­pi­tal buy­outs, all while work­ing 12-hour shifts as a car­di­ol­o­gy RN.

On August 9, the self-described pro­gres­sive Demo­c­rat will make her first run for elect­ed office, fac­ing off against Stephen Pilch­er and incum­bent Dave Sharpe in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic primary.

Ver­mont is one of the few states with a prece­dent of pro­gres­sive lead­er­ship. Not only have third-par­ty pro­gres­sive can­di­dates won seats in the state House and Sen­ate, but Sanders also hails from the Green Moun­tain State. Rid­ing the wave of polit­i­cal opti­mism cre­at­ed by his cam­paign, can­di­dates like Cordes are work­ing to ensure that the senator’s pro­gres­sive lega­cy will live on in local government.

Her work has earned her the endorse­ments of the Ver­mont AFL-CIO, the Ver­mont Nation­al Edu­ca­tors Asso­ci­a­tion and the Ver­mont State Employ­ees’ Association.

In These Times recent­ly con­nect­ed with Cordes by phone to dis­cuss her past, present and future as a polit­i­cal leader.

The fol­low­ing inter­view has been edit­ed and con­densed for clarity.

Why did you decide to run for office?

Run­ning for office is a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of the work that I’ve been doing in coali­tion, through union and social jus­tice activism over the last few years. I was also encour­aged to run by oth­er elect­ed lead­ers a num­ber of years ago, when we were build­ing the paid sick days leg­is­la­tion that even­tu­al­ly did pass this year. In August of last year, I was invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in a three-day train­ing with the Pro­gres­sive Change Cam­paign Com­mit­tee, a nation­al can­di­date train­ing. So yeah, a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of the work I’ve already been doing. But I have to say, for sure, that even though I decid­ed to run before Bernie Sanders’ kick­off, his lead­er­ship, his move­ment, his rev­o­lu­tion have always great­ly inspired me.

It’s clear that Bernie Sanders has gal­va­nized politi­cians across the coun­try. How has the suc­cess of his cam­paign con­tributed to your own polit­i­cal aspirations?

It punc­tu­at­ed what I already know. We suc­ceed at cre­at­ing sub­stan­tive change by being togeth­er in pow­er­ful coali­tions of cre­ative people.

What is your his­to­ry with the labor move­ment in Ver­mont? What suc­cess­es have you helped it achieve?

I came to Ver­mont, and first start­ed work­ing on an organ­ic veg­etable farm. Dur­ing that time, I decid­ed I want­ed to be a nurse. In nurs­ing school, look­ing back, I was a trou­ble­mak­er and an orga­niz­er. I don’t think I rec­og­nized it at the time; it was just who I was and what I did. When things weren’t right in nurs­ing school, I orga­nized stu­dents. And I remem­ber when a friend of mine said that ​“nurs­es will nev­er form unions until there are more men involved,” and that pissed me off, and that moti­vat­ed me. I was very proud to be a found­ing orga­niz­ing nurse mem­ber of our union in 2002 – 2003, and since then, I’ve con­tin­ued as a social jus­tice activist, work­ing with­in my union, (and) even­tu­al­ly becom­ing the sec­ond pres­i­dent in our history.

When I was pres­i­dent, we had great suc­cess with build­ing a coali­tion of LGBT groups and indi­vid­u­als, and (mak­ing) it ille­gal in Ver­mont for health insur­ance com­pa­nies to dis­crim­i­nate against trans­gen­dered indi­vid­u­als. Because of the work that we did, Ver­mont became the fourth state in the nation to have such clar­i­ty around health insur­ance com­pa­nies being required to cov­er trans­gen­der health care (and) trans­gen­der spe­cif­ic needs. We were also very involved in the paid sick day bill, ear­ly on, and we were hap­py to see that pass.

One of the major parts of your plat­form is your sup­port for unions and work­ers’ rights. If elect­ed, how do you plan to pro­mote these causes?

When I am elect­ed, and as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, I will have a back­bone on work­ers’ rights issues. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic estab­lish­ment has for­got­ten the rights of work­ers and the pow­er of the work­ing. And the neolib­er­al agen­da has become the norm, in the sense that many peo­ple in office believe that the things that work­ers are fight­ing for are fringe ideas instead of foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples of a democ­ra­cy. The pen­du­lum has swung so far to the right in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, as far as work­ers’ rights go. I will be one of the pro­gres­sive mem­bers in the state House who will be stand­ing strong to bring the pen­du­lum back to sup­port­ing the work­ing class.

Ver­mont is one of the few states in the nation where a pro­gres­sive third par­ty has suc­ceed­ed in win­ning House and Sen­ate seats. How can the Pro­gres­sive Party’s per­spec­tive help the peo­ple of Vermont?

Well, I think it’s already help­ing Ver­mont in that there’s a large per­cent of peo­ple that are pro­gres­sive, and who are frus­trat­ed with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic estab­lish­ment. Even Democ­rats with­in the estab­lish­ment are frus­trat­ed with the inabil­i­ty to move major issues for­ward. A pro­gres­sive plat­form, and a pro­gres­sive agen­da that’s actu­al­ized will help Ver­mon­ters in many ways.

What do you think the lega­cy of Sanders’ cam­paign will be, both on Vermont’s Pro­gres­sive Par­ty and on the nation as a whole?

Bernie Sanders’ lega­cy with this cam­paign and the polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion is con­tin­ued, pow­er­ful orga­niz­ing by an engaged elec­torate. (It is) the engage­ment of peo­ple who have not been involved for years and of young peo­ple who are new­ly involved, because they now real­ize and believe that they do have a voice. Rev­o­lu­tions cre­ate dis­com­fort — that’s their nature — that’s what they’re sup­posed to do. And in that dis­com­fort we are cre­at­ing change.