The U.S. Senate scramble over raising the federal minimum wage is presenting the first major test of the uneasy alliance between the Democratic Party’s vocal progressive wing and President Joe Biden 37 days into his administration.
After Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that putting a stepped increase in the wage to $15 per hour in Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan did not comply with Senate budget rules, progressives in Congress and allied outside groups are mounting a campaign to get the White House to support either changing or ignoring the chamber’s procedures to push the legislation through.
“Really our options right now, at least our immediate options on this specific issue, are to do something about this parliamentary obstacle or abolish the filibuster,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday.
Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives in the House, which is set to pass its version of the relief bill Friday, including the minimum-wage increase, contend that public opinion is on their side. There is a political cost for dropping the wage increase because of arcane congressional traditions, they said.
The administration and Congress face a tight timetable to decide on their next move. Democrats were aiming to pass a broader bill, which also includes $1,400 payments to many Americans, by the time the existing extension of supplemental jobless benefits expires March 14.
Democrats pushing the minimum-wage provision say the rest of Biden’s agenda, including infrastructure investments, immigration reform and measures to combat climate change, is at stake. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said this is a moment that’s “not just about minimum wage—it’s all the promises Democrats made.”
“We made a promise to raise the minimum wage,” Jayapal said Friday. “We now have to deliver on that promise to 27 million Americans, who are not going to be much convinced when we go back in two years and say, ‘Sorry, the unelected parliamentarian told us we couldn’t raise the minimum wage.’”
Limited options
The Senate is split 50-50. Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote technically gives Democrats the majority. The Democratic-led Senate will have one shot every fiscal year to pass a bill with a simple majority—without any Republican votes—using the budget reconciliation process. But Senate rules give the parliamentarian the authority to decide if individual provisions are sufficiently fiscal in nature. Thursday MdDonough said the minimum wage measure should not be included.
One option is for Harris to overrule the parliamentarian’s guidance and proceed with the bill. A coalition of more than 20 progressives groups sent a letter Thursday to Biden and Harris, asking that she do just that.
“This single, powerful move will begin to reset the economic system so that millions of low-wage workers—disproportionately women of color and communities of color—will no longer be treated as second-class citizens,” the groups wrote in the letter.
But White House officials have said that Harris isn’t considering taking that step.
Biden, who was a senator from Delaware for 36 years, has been reluctant to push for changes to Senate rules and traditions. In addition, it’s not clear that all 50 Democrats would go along with the maneuver.
Trying to move a minimum-wage measure separately would run into the Senate’s filibuster rule. That requires 60 votes to consider most legislation—which means bills passed by the Democratic-led House and supported by the administration could be held up by a Republican minority.
Filibuster in the spotlight
Some Democrats have cast the filibuster as a relic of segregationist lawmakers. Former President Barack Obama made that connection last year when he said Democrats shouldn’t let their agenda be derailed by the filibuster. Other progressives, including Rep. Barbara Lee of California, made the same point after the parliamentarian’s minimum-wage ruling.
The Sunrise Movement, a group focused on climate policy, issued a joint statement with four groups—including the Justice Democrats, an organization allied with Ocasio-Cortez. It said the Senate should operate on a simple majority vote.
“Instead of using reconciliation again and putting other key progressive priorities at the mercy of the parliamentarian, Democrats should bring President Biden’s popular policies—like a $15 minimum wage—straight to the Senate floor under regular order,” the groups wrote in the letter. “If Republicans choose to block them, Democrats must abolish the filibuster to pass them.”
Even as outside groups apply pressure, Ocasio-Cortez said the Biden administration is doing a good job of bringing progressives into the conversation. She said she has spoken with Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, whom she described as responsive to left-leaning lawmakers.
“I do feel responsiveness from the White House, and I think that that’s also been part of the good-faith negotiations that we have,” the Queens Democrat said Friday. “Progressives are not being iced out of these negotiations.”
Wage work-around
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the progressive independent who is chairman of the budget committee, proposed an amendment to the virus-relief bill that would take tax deductions away from large corporations that don’t pay workers at least $15 per hour. That would provide incentives to pay workers a higher wage, and the fiscal nature of the policy would be more likely to pass the parliamentarian’s muster. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the finance committee, backs using the tax code.
A senior Democratic aide said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is considering whether to add an amendment to the relief bill that would penalize large corporations that don’t pay workers at least a $15 hourly wage.
Yet even if Democrats change Senate rules or amend the virus-relief bill to work around the rules, they still would have the challenge of keeping their party united. Two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have said they don’t support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
Those two senators, along with several other moderate Democrats, are likely to have enormous sway over everything Democrats try to pass through a 50-50 Senate.
“The fact that we have two people in this entire country that are holding back a complete transformation in working people’s lives, the same people who have held our country together throughout this pandemic, is wrong,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
SOURCE: Section Page News – Crain’s New York Business – Read entire story here.