Liberal activists and lawmakers are urging Vice President Kamala Harris to overrule the Senate’s legislative referee by advancing a minimum wage increase as part of a $1.9 trillion White House-backed spending package, pressure other Democrats deride as political posturing by the Left.
President Biden’s campaign promise to hike the minimum wage to $15 per hour hit a snag last week after the Senate parliamentarian ruled it does not comply with the terms governing budget reconciliation, the fast-track tactic Democrats are using to pass the massive bill without needing Republican votes.
The White House said on Monday it is unwilling to bend the upper chamber’s rules by having Harris use her position as the Senate’s presiding officer to overrule the parliamentarian, with press secretary Jen Psaki telling reporters, “That’s not an action we intend to take.”
To be sure, the campaign-trail promise was imperiled from the start.
Some centrist Democrats signaled opposition to the wage hike early on and to ignoring the Byrd rule, which governs what is allowed in any budget reconciliation package, including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Democrats are attempting to pass the bill with a simple majority in the Senate, bypassing the usual 60-vote threshold and need for Republican support. For this to work, Democrats need every one of their own members to support the bill and Harris to cast the deciding vote.
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Biden hitched the measure to his American Rescue Plan, which calls for $1,400 payments and vaccine distribution funding, among other things, but with a March 14 expiration date for boosted unemployment aid approaching, the clock is ticking for Democrats to pass something quickly.
Reecie Colbert, an opinion writer and Harris supporter, said people could be left with a smaller $600 billion Republican bill should Democrats fail to secure the votes they need for their own bill.
“They have to understand that the political calculus is absolutely not in their favor. To overrule the parliamentarian is simply to have the bill fail,” Colbert said. “Why go through this Kabuki theater of overriding the parliamentarian to then have a COVID relief package that’s now in danger?”
House lawmakers passed a bill with the wage hike early Saturday. On Monday, members of the House Progressive Caucus issued a letter to Biden and Harris to ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling.
The letter, signed by 23 lawmakers, including Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush, said there is precedent for bypassing the parliamentarian’s advice and the White House should heed it.
In an interview with the Bad Faith podcast on Sunday, Khanna, a California congressman, said the White House was abiding by “selective institutionalism” in choosing to abide the parliamentarian’s ruling.
“Suddenly, we care about deference to Congress, and deference to rules, and deference to the parliamentarian about minimum wage, and we don’t have that same deference when it comes to bombing in the Middle East?” he said. “I don’t think that people feel we have fought hard enough to get this through.”
Aimee Allison, president and founder of She the People, which advocates women of color becoming involved in politics, said in a statement that the Biden-Harris ticket was voted in on the $15 wage promise and should abide by it.
“When women of color across the country voted in record numbers, we did so to bring hope and change to millions who have suffered with wages that have been too low for too long,” Allison said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “This is the best opportunity for the Biden Administration to deliver to the American people, and make an early, universally-popular win that will make economic recovery possible.”
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But Biden had already signaled reservations over the provision’s likelihood of survival earlier this month.
“I put it in, but I don’t think it’s going to survive,” Biden told CBS News in an interview weeks before the Senate parliamentarian issued a judgment on whether it would hold.
