Senate votes down $15 minimum wage during vote-a-rama. Bernie Sanders seems unfazed.


The Senate slogged through a long series of votes late Thursday and early Friday, with the Democrats voting down most of the theoretically limitless series of amendments to their budget resolution. "The endurance run known as the 'vote-a-rama' is a time-honored tradition of the reconciliation process — the budget tool Democrats will likely use to expedite passage of [President] Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan without any GOP support," Politico explains.
Most of the vote-a-rama involved "Republicans forcing Democrats into tedious and uncomfortable votes on a variety of issues as Democrats inflicted maximum pain by dragging out the legislative torment," Politico reports. But some amendments did pass with bipartisan support. By a voice vote, for example, the senators approved an amendment from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to "prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic." Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is one of the heavy lifts in Biden's proposal.
"A $15 federal minimum wage would be devastating for our hardest-hit small businesses at a time they can least afford it," Ernst argued on the Senate floor. The measure's biggest proponent, Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), shrugged off the vote, noting that his plan raised the minimum wage over five years, starting after the pandemic. "We need to end the crisis of starvation wages in Iowa and around the United States," he said, adding that he "will do everything that I can" to make sure the measure "is included in this reconciliation bill."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The minimum wage hike may be stymied by other factors: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is opposed, and it may run afoul of so-called Byrd Rule limits on what can be included in reconciliation bills. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said if it doesn't make it in this bill, Democrats will include it in other legislation.
The Senate also approved amendments to keep America's Israeli embassy in Jerusalem, prevent undocumented immigrants from getting direct stimulus checks, and — by a 99-1 vote — restrict Biden's $1,400 checks from going to "upper-income taxpayers." That proposal, from Manchin and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), did not specify any income thresholds, and Biden's proposal already includes phasing out the checks up to $300,000-a-year households. Congress and the White House are negotiating the phase-out and cutoff points, and Biden is meeting with Democratic leaders and committee chairs Friday morning to discuss the COVID-19 relief bill.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
6 charming homes in Rhode Island
Feature Featuring an award-winning home on Block Island and a casket-making-company-turned-condo in Providence
-
Team Trump brings the MAGA playbook to Albania's elections
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The architects of the president's 2024 victory are looking east to extend their populist reach
-
Narco subs are helping fuel a global cocaine surge
The Explainer Drug smugglers are increasingly relying on underwater travel to hide from law enforcement
-
Fed leaves rates unchanged as Powell warns on tariffs
speed read The Federal Reserve says the risks of higher inflation and unemployment are increasing under Trump's tariffs
-
Denmark to grill US envoy on Greenland spying report
speed read The Trump administration ramped up spying on Greenland, says reporting by The Wall Street Journal
-
Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban
speed read The US Supreme Court will let the Trump administration begin executing its ban on transgender military service members
-
Hollywood confounded by Trump's film tariff idea
speed read President Trump proposed a '100% tariff' on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
-
Trump offers migrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'
speed read The Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants can leave the US in a more 'dignified way'
-
Trump is not sure he must follow the Constitution
speed read When asked about due process for migrants in a TV interview, President Trump said he didn't know whether he had to uphold the Fifth Amendment
-
Trump judge bars deportations under 1798 law
speed read A Trump appointee has ruled that the president's use of a wartime act for deportations is illegal
-
Trump ousts Waltz as NSA, taps him for UN role
speed read President Donald Trump removed Mike Waltz as national security adviser and nominated him as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations