{"id":17780,"date":"2021-03-02T10:53:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T18:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=17780"},"modified":"2021-03-02T10:53:29","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T18:53:29","slug":"house-dems-demand-harris-advance-15-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2021\/03\/02\/house-dems-demand-harris-advance-15-minimum-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"House Dems Demand Harris Advance $15 Minimum Wage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a new letter, nearly two dozen House Dems are pressing Vice President Kamala Harris to ignore the Senate parliamentarian and fulfill her minimum wage promise.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Julia Rock<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Andrew Perez<\/a> Mar 1, 2021 (Daily Poster)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

This report was written by Julia Rock and Andrew Perez.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progressive House lawmakers are demanding Vice President Kamala Harris use her power as presiding officer of the Senate to immediately advance the $15 minimum wage that she has long said she supports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEighty-one million people cast their ballots to elect you on a platform that called for a $15 minimum wage. We urge you to keep that promise,\u201d the lawmakers wrote in a letter<\/a> to Harris and President Joe Biden, pressing the White House to raise the wage for workers as part of Biden\u2019s American Rescue Plan. \u201cWe must act now to prevent tens of millions of hardworking Americans from being underpaid any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter released Monday was signed by 23 Democrats, including Reps. Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamal Bowman, and Cori Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raising the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour would increase the wages of 32 million<\/a> workers, a majority of whom currently live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe believe that the bill the President signs must include the House-passed minimum wage legislation,\u201d Khanna told The Daily Poster<\/em>. \u201cThis is the moment to get this done and it is within our control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Senate Presiding Officer Is The Decider, Not The Parliamentarian<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Last Thursday, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, the body\u2019s nonpartisan adviser on all procedural matters, issued an opinion advising Democrats that she believes the minimum wage increase is subject to a point of order, allowing it to be stripped out of a COVID bill under the budget reconciliation process. Democrats are using that process so they can pass the legislation by a simple majority vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parliamentarian\u2019s advice is non-binding. The presiding officer of the Senate is the ultimate decision maker and can ignore the parliamentarian, as The Daily Poster <\/em>previously reported<\/a> and as indicated by a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report<\/a>. If the minimum wage is included in Democrats\u2019 COVID relief bill and Republicans raise a point of order to try to strip it out, the presiding officer can reject the point of order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As vice president, Harris is the chamber\u2019s presiding officer, though if she decides to avoid being present in the chamber, another Democratic senator can issue rulings on parliamentary questions. The CRS report<\/a> notes that 60 votes are needed to overrule a presiding officer\u2019s ruling, though Republican senators could try to change that longstanding rule with a simple majority vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats also have another option to advance the minimum wage: They could follow Republican precedent<\/a> and replace the parliamentarian with a different adviser with a different interpretation of the so-called Byrd Rule, a three-decade-old<\/a> rule requiring measures in budget legislation be related to federal spending. A Congressional Budget Office<\/a> report said the minimum wage is related to spending, but the parliamentarian ignored that report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin backed a minimum wage increase<\/a> in 2014, they have said they oppose including a $15 minimum wage in the COVID bill. It\u2019s unclear whether they would vote to sink the entire relief package if Democrats include the measure and overrule the parliamentarian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House Is So Far Trying To Preemptively Surrender<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

President Biden campaigned<\/a> on a promise to enact a $15 minimum wage and presented himself<\/a> as the guy who knows \u201chow to make government work,\u201d but his White House has suggested it wants Democratic senators to accept the parliamentarian\u2019s opinion and allow the minimum wage measure to be pulled out of the COVID relief bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe vice president’s not going to weigh in,\u201d Biden National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said Friday on CNBC. \u201cThe president and the vice president both respect the parliamentarian’s decision and the process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House Democrats included the minimum wage measure in the COVID relief legislation they passed on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new letter from the House Democrats heightens the pressure on Harris, who has backed a $15 minimum wage<\/a> for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly one year ago today, Harris reiterated her support for the wage increase.Kamala Harris <\/strong>@KamalaHarrisIn 2009, the federal minimum wage was set at $7.25\/hour.\n\nMore than 10 years later and it\u2019s still $7.25. We need a $15 minimum wage to be the national floor. Now.March 1st 20206,232<\/strong> Retweets36,965<\/strong> Likes<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is now letting White House aides speak for her on the issue, however. Harris, should she want to run for president, could be seen as the candidate who killed a major party priority while in the White House. Alternately, she could play a high-profile role in advancing the minimum wage increase.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter notes that Vice President Hubert Humphrey twice overruled the Senate parliamentarian, as did Vice President Walter Mondale. In 2001, Republicans fired<\/a> the parliamentarian after he made two rulings that impeded their policy goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days before the presidential election, Harris appeared<\/a> in a virtual town hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders and committed to<\/a> raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Biden and Harris both backed<\/a> a $15 minimum wage during the Democratic primaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe outdated and complex Byrd rule, rooted in restricting progress, must not be an impediment to improving people\u2019s lives.\u201d the House Democrats said in their letter. \u201cYou have the authority to deliver a raise for millions of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

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Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a new letter, nearly two dozen House Dems are pressing Vice President Kamala Harris to ignore the Senate parliamentarian and fulfill her minimum wage promise. Julia Rock\u00a0and\u00a0Andrew Perez Mar 1, 2021 (Daily Poster) This report was written by Julia Rock and Andrew Perez. Progressive House lawmakers are demanding Vice… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17781,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17780\/revisions\/17781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}