House Democrats will work to institute a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour by 2025 when they take the majority next year, with by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the likely chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, expected to lead the charge.
“On the legislation front, there will be a push to raise the minimum wage,” said a House Democratic staffer.
Democratic lawmakers have been calling for a $15 minimum wage since the 2016 election. While it is unlikely that President Trump would agree to a rate that high, administration officials, including Trump, have indicated that they are open to raising it above the current federal level of $7.25.
House leadership elections will not be held until December and the chairmanships won’t be announced until then. Scott, as the ranking Democrat on the committee, is the most likely pick to head the Education and Workforce Committee. No other contenders have been floated by the Democrats.
The Democratic staffer sketched out an ambitious agenda for the committee, which will be renamed to put more focus on labor issues, part of a broader effort to boost organized labor in the next Congress. The exact name has not been decided.
The committee will also probe alleged conflicts of interest on the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency. Democrats have argued that two of Trump’s appointees to the five-member board, Chairman John Ring and Member William Emanuel, should recuse themselves from a broad swath of cases that the board may hear based on their private-sector work at management-side law firms.
Should they recuse themselves in a case, that would give the board a 2-1 Democratic majority for the time being, effectively undoing the influence of Trump’s picks.
Scott is also keen on probing whether the Labor Department’s assistant secretary for mine safety, David Zatezalo, exceeded his authority by entering into a settlement agreement with the West Virginia mining company Pocahontas Coal following a pattern of violations there. Scott wrote the department in September asking for the legal basis of the decision.
Education will also be a focus for the committee. Scott has been a vocal opponent of for-profit colleges and has criticized Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for several rulemakings that benefited the industry.
