Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema nodded to her late predecessor, Senator John McCain, with a negative vote in the Senate on Friday.
Video captured in the Senate chamber showed the newly elected Sinema making a move to reject a proposal by Senator Bernie Sanders to include a $ 15 minimum wage increase in the Senate’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.
Sinema joined seven other Democratic senators, as well as all Republicans.
McCain famously voted no on a Senate plan to revoke Obamacare in 2018 with a thumbs down that ended up undermining the effort.
Although she supports the salary increase, Sinema said she would support the decision of the Senate parliamentarian who determined that the minimum wage could not be included as part of the Reconciliation process, a Senate protocol, which is allowing the coronavirus relief project pass with 51 votes as opposed to the usual 60 needed to override an obstruction.
“Senators from both parties have shown support for raising the federal minimum wage and the Senate should hold an open debate and amendment process on raising the minimum wage separate from the reconciliation project focused on COVID,” Sinema said in a statement explaining your vote.
The sentiment was not well accepted by many in their own party, with progressives having a particular ire. Sanders took the floor on Saturday to urge his colleagues to disregard the MP’s decision, dismissing him as an unelected Senate official.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was even more direct.
“Imagine having the earnings to go home and ask minimum wage workers to support you after returning to your own documented stance to help crush your biggest chance of a pay rise during your longest wage increase drought since the beginning of law. Sin vergüenza ”, she said in a tweet.