After three decades in Congress that earned him iconic status on the American left, Bernie Sanders is preparing for a different role in his next act.

He ran twice for president, then pushed an all-Democratic government as far left as it could possibly go, and now the Vermont independent is set to take over the Senate’s prestigious Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next year. The panel is the perfect platform for Sanders’ top issues, like Medicare for All. It also has a proud bipartisan reputation.

Which presents a new challenge for the famously pugnacious progressive as he weighs whether to run for reelection in 2024. Sanders will be taking over the HELP committee, as it’s known, under a divided government with his party holding a tiny Senate majority.

And he’s conspicuously aware that holding one of the top gavels in Congress won’t entitle him to muscle his own agenda through. What’s more, many Democrats don’t support all of Sanders’ policy prescriptions.

So the gruff 81-year-old is planning to be a chair who can do both: embrace his activist roots while also working across the aisle on incremental gains that could actually become law.

“I’m going to be walking a tightrope,” Sanders said in an interview this week. “I want to work with Republicans on issues where we can make progress. In other areas, they’re not going to support me. And I’m not gonna give up on those issues.”

In the interview, he revealed a short list of goals that might have bipartisan appeal on the committee next Congress. They include improving primary care access; reducing the cost of prescription drugs and insulin; expanding early childhood education; beefing up the health and education workforce; and even trying to tackle an increase in the minimum wage, which he thinks should now be well above the $15 an hour he started pushing years ago.

Simultaneously, Sanders won’t be satisfied with a chairmanship that stays solely in the political center. That means he’s thinking about how to advocate for Medicare for All, take on the pharmaceutical industry aggressively, promote free public college tuition and take his committee show on the road to the public — a signature touch from the rally-holding senator.

The panel is the perfect platform for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ top issues, like Medicare for All.