Nicole Gaudiano

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — As Bernie Sanders settles back into his day job in the Senate, he’ll be looking to one committee to help further the goals of his “political revolution.”

Under certain circumstances, the Vermont independent could even end up chairing the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which has jurisdiction over some of his priority issues.

The former Democratic presidential candidate said it would give him “enormous pleasure” to lead the effort to make public colleges tuition-free for working families and to see a doubling of funding for community health care centers.

“I have a very ambitious agenda that I look forward to fighting for,” Sanders said during a recent interview.

Sanders' prospects for heading the committee depend on whether Democrats regain control of the Senate in the November elections — and on what Sen. Patty Murray of Washington decides to do as the committee’s top-ranking Democrat.

In a Democratic-run Senate, Sanders also would be in line to chair the Senate Budget Committee. But the HELP committee is where he could offer substantive legislation to carry out ideas he fought for in his presidential campaign, including a $15 minimum wage, said his spokesman Michael Briggs.

Murray's spokesman, Eli Zupnick, said Murray won’t make any decisions until after the election. But he said "there is a whole lot more that she’d like to get done” on the committee, including fighting alongside Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Sanders and other HELP colleagues for "a strong progressive agenda." Making college more affordable, reducing the burden of student loan debt, building on the Affordable Care Act, and increasing wages for workers and families are among her priorities, he said.

It’s “much too early to tell’’ whether Sanders would become the HELP chairman if Democrats regain a Senate majority, said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who is poised to be the Senate’s next Democratic leader.

“There’s lots of individual choices ahead, of people who are senior to Bernie," Schumer said recently. "So who knows? He will chair a significant committee if we win the majority. I don’t know which one it would be.’’

Sanders has long called for a Medicare-for-all health care system and free college tuition. Regardless of who chairs the HELP committee, he likely will introduce legislation to provide free college tuition for working families and to expand community health center funding in January, Briggs said. Those policy goals resulted from negotiations between Sanders and Clinton at the end of their primary battle.

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In her nomination acceptance speech last month, Clinton said she would work with Sanders to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for all. As part of her health care proposal, she also reaffirmed her commitment in July to giving Americans the choice of a “public option” insurance plan and allowing people below Medicare age to opt into the program.

A Clinton campaign official said extra costs for the proposals would be offset by closing additional high-income tax loopholes.

Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said it would be “a stretch” to imagine circumstances where such proposals would gain traction in Congress, at least in the short term.

“Let’s just deal with free tuition,” he said. “The revenues (you'd need) are enormous and they’re not just going to come from the ultra rich."

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Republicans wouldn't back tuition-free college, and it would be a tough sell even for some centrist Democrats. Even if the cost weren't so high, many organizations that work on equity in higher education would object to using a huge influx of cash in a blanket way, Lanae Erickson Hatalsky of the centrist think tank Third Way wrote in an email.

“Free college is a good election-year slogan — not a real fix for our higher ed system,” she wrote.

Experts say Sanders is more likely to see success in pushing a proposal to boost funding for community health centers, which have bipartisan support. The centers have been a key priority for Sanders, who successfully fought to include $11 billion for them in the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

“The question is, what’s the number?” asked Ashley Ridlon of the Bipartisan Policy Center Advocacy Network. “Will it be double funding? Probably not.”

Contributing: Brian Tumulty, USA TODAY

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