More than two decades ago, Senator Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) legislative obsession provided a lesson about how a bill becomes a law — and then doesn’t. It is a cautionary tale that one Democratic senator seems to have internalized and quietly acted on deep in the legislative text of the drug pricing provisions included in the recent spending bill signed by President Joe Biden.

The maneuver could be a welcome twist on a Washington narrative that has long been all too common: legislative victories over powerful industries are often undone by the executive branch during the ensuing rulemaking and implementation. That is when industry lobbyists weaponize vague bill text and loopholes that they often helped write to ultimately get exactly what they want.

Back in 2000, for example, after a campaign of high-profile bus trips to Canada and legislative arm-twisting, Sanders somehow passed a measure through a Republican Congress to let Americans buy cheaper medicines from other countries. The measure was popular and included in a must-pass spending bill, forcing pharma-friendly president Bill Clinton to sign it into law.