© Provided by Washington Examiner An intraparty dispute regarding the Senate parliamentarian's ruling on the $15 minimum wage is the newest phase in a broader debate among Democrats about whether the Senate's rules and precedents obstruct progress or ensure good governance.
What the late conservative intellectual Russell Kirk denounced as the "leveling impulse," a modern urge to extinguish traditions and knock down barriers against "progress," is written into the DNA of left-of-center politics. Now it's at the heart of this new dispute within the political Left.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled on Thursday that the $15 minimum wage provision in Democrats' "American Rescue Plan" for coronavirus relief fails something called the "merely incidental" test that controls parts of Congress's complicated budget reconciliation process.
While "disappointed," President Biden "respects the parliamentarian's decision and the Senate's process," according to his press secretary.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Senate Budget Committee chairman who has been a leading advocate for the $15 minimum wage provision, said in a statement that he has resolved to offer an amendment to the relief bill 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."
"We are deeply disappointed in this decision," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. "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. The American people deserve it, and we are committed to making it a reality."
Schumer's statement leaves the door open, but these three suggest that rather than supporting an effort to overrule the parliamentarian (which is within the Senate presiding officer's authority), they have resolved to defer to her judgment, which is precedential.
Other Democrats don't give a hoot about precedent, though, and would prefer to get rid of this and all mechanisms that protect against simple majoritarianism because those mechanisms obstruct their current agenda.
"It is possible for the chair to decide to include [it] anyway despite the parliamentarian's ruling," Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said on Thursday. Jayapal has entertained this idea elsewhere in recent weeks, saying, "I think that the key here is that we're going to keep every tool in the toolbox available," with regard to overruling the parliamentarian.
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted late Thursday, "Abolish the filibuster. Replace the parliamentarian. What's a Democratic majority if we can't pass our priority bills? This is unacceptable."
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California tweeted, "I'm sorry - an unelected parliamentarian does not get to deprive 32 million Americans the raise they deserve. This is an advisory, not a ruling. VP Harris needs to disregard and rule a $15 minimum wage in order."
This debate over rules and precedents has been shaping up among Democrats for months. Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, shortly after the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, demanded that Democrats abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court. He reiterated his call to abolish the legislative filibuster in a video last month.
Still, other Democrats have quite forwardly rejected such moves. Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema told Politico recently, "I want to restore the 60-vote threshold for all elements of the Senate's work." She actually wants to give up power, which makes her a fiend to liberal Democrats.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said he is "not going to be part of breaking the Senate" by supporting the abolition of the filibuster. He, like Sinema, is on record demanding adherence to precedents related to the Byrd Rule, which established the "merely incidental" test that the $15 minimum wage just failed.
These differences establish divisions between those (few) Democrats who forthrightly value the rules of the game, those who have more or less resorted to playing within the rules, even if begrudgingly (Sanders decried the "archaic and undemocratic rules of the Senate" in that same statement), and those who would completely do away with them.
The first group has all the leverage because the Democrats' bill can't pass without Manchin and Sinema. The second group is largely aging out of politics, while the third group has all the political momentum on the Left.
The Senate's rules and precedents look safe for now, though their longer-term future looks grim.
Tags: Beltway Confidential, Opinion, Congress, Democrats, Senate, Coronavirus, Filibuster, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema
Original Author: Jeremy Beaman
Original Location: Democrats split over whether to play by the rules