Liberals on fire over failure on $15 minimum wage

Liberal senators and outside pressure groups are steaming over the Senate’s seeming failure to move a COVID-19 relief package with a provision hiking the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.

An adverse decision from the Senate parliamentarian means Democrats can’t move the $15 minimum using special budgetary rules meant to sidestep the filibuster.

That is leading to calls to overrule or fire the parliamentarian, or to get rid of the filibuster, which essentially requires legislation to secure 60 votes to proceed through the Senate.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate’s leading proponent of a $15-an-hour minimum wage, on Monday called on Democratic colleagues to “ignore” the parliamentarian’s ruling and pledged he would force a vote on the issue his week.

“My personal view is that the idea that we have a Senate staffer, a high-ranking staffer, deciding whether 30 million Americans get a pay raise or not is non-sensical,” he said. “We have got to make that decision, not a staffer who’s unelected, so my own view is that we should ignore the rulings, the decision of the parliamentarian.”

The problem for Sanders and other liberals is that it does not appear Democrats have even the 50 votes in their caucus to pass the $15 minimum wage or end the filibuster using the so-called nuclear option.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) opposes the $15 minimum wage, though he does support raising it to $11 an hour and indexing it to inflation. Without his vote, Democrats don’t even have 50 votes in the Senate.