Prospects for using President
Senate parliamentarian
That means Democrats will almost certainly have to remove it from the Covid-19 relief bill. The move set off a firestorm of reactions, with progressives calling on party leaders to set the ruling aside and proceed apace. Moving a standalone wage-hike bill would prove challenging, given broad Republican opposition and the likely need for 10 GOP votes in the Senate.
“President Biden is disappointed in this outcome” and respects the decision and the Senate’s process, White House Press Secretary
The battle to more than double the current $7.25 minimum wage isn’t over, according to Senate Budget Committee Chairman
“In the coming days, I will be working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward with an amendment to take tax deductions away from large, profitable corporations that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour -- and to provide small businesses with the incentives they need to raise wages,” Sanders said Thursday night. “That amendment must be included in this reconciliation bill.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman
The parliamentarian’s ruling on the application of the so-called Byrd rule can be overturned with 50 votes, but West Virginia Senator
Harris’s Authority
Progressives have referred the parliamentarian’s power as advisory only. Representative
Democratic Senator
South Carolina Senator
“This decision will, over time, reinforce the traditions of the Senate,” Graham said in a statement.
In 2001, the parliamentarian at the time was
The House is poised to pass the $1.9 trillion stimulus on Friday, and congressional leaders have pledged to send the bill to the White House by March 14.
Continuing Fight
“We are not going to give up the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 to help millions of struggling American workers and their families,” Senate Majority Leader
If advocates prove able to restore the minimum-wage measure to the reconciliation process, it would then still require the task of finding 50 votes for the increase. Moderate Democrats had indicated they wanted changes to the House version -- which set a phased increase to $15 an hour in 2025.
Manchin said this week that he could back an $11 an hour minimum, phased in over two years, and then indexed to inflation. Before the parliamentarian’s ruling on Thursday, he said a compromise might be found. “There are a lot of things we can do,” he said.
Arizona Senator
(Updates with White House comment, in fourth paragraph.)
--With assistance from
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Scott Lanman, John Harney
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