Left-wingers target $15 minimum wage foes Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin

The Poor People’s Campaign, a faith-based advocacy group at the forefront of pushing for a $15 minimum wage, held rallies in Arizona and West Virginia on Monday to pressure the two senators to support the wage hike.

“This is our economic Selma,” the Rev. William Barber, co-chairman of the campaign, said from West Virginia on Monday. “You can’t build back unless you build up from the bottom.”

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“Sen. Manchin, this is also Black History Month. … Manchin also loves to quote Dr. King, and I’m glad he does. But you have to understand, Dr. King was for a living wage,” Barber said. “Also, 1.2 million make less than a living wage in Arizona, and Krysten Sinema, the senator there, there is no reason you should be talking about not supporting for COVID relief with $15 an hour.”

In an accompanying livestream event, the Poor People’s Campaign was joined by the Service Employees International Union and its president, Mary Kay Henry, minimum wage advocacy group One Fair Wage, and the Communications Workers of America union, among others.

Neither Sinema nor Manchin is up for election until 2024, but the activism from left-wing groups could serve as a warning sign for challenges to come.

It is unclear whether the $15 provision will be included in the final version of the coronavirus spending bill. The bill is moving through a budget reconciliation process, which avoids Democrats in the 50-50 divided Senate having to get support from at least 10 Republicans to avoid a filibuster stopping the bill in its tracks, but there is debate about whether Senate rules will allow the $15 minimum wage measure to move through the reconciliation process. The Senate parliamentarian would have to approve that, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has said that he is “confident” that the $15 measure would be allowed.

Even assuming a $15 minimum wage is allowed in budget reconciliation, it faces a major roadblock in a 50-50 divided Senate without support from Manchin and Sinema.

Sinema’s gripe is that she does not believe that the proposal should be part of the coronavirus spending package passed through the reconciliation process.

Manchin has suggested an alternative: an $11 federal minimum wage, which would increase the standard without equating high-cost-of-living areas such as New York with low-cost-of-living areas such as West Virginia.

The West Virginia senator reportedly brought up the $11 idea in a meeting with members of the Poor People’s Campaign last week, which they promptly rejected.

“We’re not interested in compromise. $15 is a compromise,” Barber told reporters after the meeting with Manchin, adding that the $11 suggestion “would just further keep people in poverty.”

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An Arizona chapter of the climate policy-focused Sunrise Movement tweeted on Friday: “More Arizonans have voted to raise the minimum wage than for Kyrsten Sinema, but she’s blocking the $15 minimum wage because of Senate procedural rule and the Jim Crow filibuster. #ShameOnSinema.”

Left-wing activist group MoveOn placed ads in print and digital of the Tucson-based Arizona Daily Star encouraging Sinema to vote in favor of the coronavirus aid package, mentioning the $15 minimum wage provision in the ad.