Senate parliamentarian decides against including minimum wage in Covid’s aid project

Senate parliamentarian decides against including minimum wage in Covid’s aid project

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While Democrats have pushed for the increase to be included, its removal may actually make it easier to approve the bill, Democratic sources believe, because it will avoid a confused fight over whether to withdraw it from the bill and reach an agreement.

The increase is likely to be included in the House bill that the House is voting on Friday. However, the congressman decided that the increase to $ 15 an hour did not meet a rigid set of guidelines needed to advance the Senate reconciliation process. This means that the House will approve the project, the Senate will have to remove the minimum wage clause and, eventually, the House will have to approve the project again at the end of the process.

The decision marks the end of a multi-week effort by Senate budget president Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, to include the clause in the bill.

“We are deeply disappointed in this decision,” said Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer in a statement after the decision. “We will not give up fighting to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 to help millions of struggling American workers and their families. The American people deserve this and we are committed to making it a reality.”

But the decision probably makes it easier for Schumer to put his members on the line behind the bill, as raising the minimum wage was a key point for moderates like Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

There are no viable options for using Senate procedures to maintain the bill’s salary readjustment.

In the House, progressive Democratic MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told CNN earlier this week that she would still support Covid’s relief package if the congressman were the only one to remove the minimum wage provision, but not if politicians were the only ones to get it out. For Ocasio-Cortez, members of his own party removing or reducing the minimum wage would have caused the bill to collapse. Representative Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democrat from Minnesota, echoed those sentiments.

Senate congresswoman Elizabeth MacDonough, a little-known but powerful Senate official, was put in the spotlight this week, with Democrats eager to see if the minimum wage increase would survive in the president’s aid package. MacDonough is the first woman to serve in the Senate parliamentary role – a non-partisan function – since that position was created in the 1930s.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Annie Grayer contributed to this report.

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