A (relatively) newfangled contrivance.

This is a nonsense reply on so many levels.

Of course an election plank, like the $15 minimum wage, which was Biden's position comes above Manchin's individualistic concerns. If not election planks become meaningless as there may always be one or more Senators who want something else.


Does that mean Manchin loses his voice. NO. But certainly Biden should not leave it out for Manchin. Instead you get your Senate whip to whip that vote, as we KNOW Mitch McConnell would do, for any of their election planks.

Showing Dem incompetence where Republicans do not fail ,is just perilous to future elections and it should be.

What Biden needs to do is take the position I stated above. There is no reason to PRETEND the senate parliamentarian is the only and final voice and consideration here. She offered an opinion based on her analysis, which is to be respected and weighted accordingly but to which there are many viable reasons to support countering opinions instead.

Biden then has Kamala over rule her (as per precedent) and Manchin is then given a reason to vote for it when it is tied to broader Stimulus legislation.

That is how things are done by a competent gov't. Manchin gets to claim he was forced into it and grumbles 'I could not vote against the broader package' and the election plank is honored.


OH and btw, the citizens in Manchin's State also by majority (63%) support the minimum wage being raised to $15 so exactly WHO is Manchin fighting for?

Because the constitution was changed.

Which is kind of what Cupee is speaking to.

This comes down to desire and will.

It would cost the Dem's nothing politically to push this through. There is no expectation, NONE, that the Parliamentarians opinions are sacrosanct. They are an opinion to be considered amongst many. Just as an ethics opinion that Biden's pick for Defense Secretary was that he was no eligible and it was not proper then to choose him.

Biden basically said, 'great, we respect your opinion, and understand your concerns, thanks for doing your job. But when we consider that in the broader context, we think we have more important reasons as to why we should proceed here, and thus we will.

When it comes to this issue, they are using the Parlimentarian as a duck and cover shelter thinking if they just point at her and say 'sorry voters, we really tried but she would not let us', it lets them off the hook for something they did not really want to do anyway.

I can already see the 2022 midterm campaign.

Dems : Vote for us and we will implement a $15 minimum wage*

Fine print - again if the Parliamentarian lets us.

They don't even have 50 votes for the min wage increase AND it's pushing the limits of what can bypass filibuster. Republicans failed in basically the exact same situation in 2017 with Obamacare repeal. Seems unlikely there is any way to do it before 2022, and even after it won't be easy.

And the existing proposal raises min wage gradually to 15 by 2025. Not sure what you think it does.

You have an idea in your head about what is important and what should be prioritized, but that idea doesn't correspond to how power is distributed in US government. Biden ran to be president of the US. As part of his campaign, he supported the $15 minimum. In an entirely different election, and at a different time (2018) Joe Manchin was elected WV Senator. It is not part of the US system that Manchin is supposed to support the minimum wage now because Biden won. Some parliamentary systems have that as a norm because they select a prime minister out of parliament. We have a presidential system, and the legislature and president have different jobs and responsibilities.

You don't understand the Senate. How is Senate leadership supposed to force Manchin to vote how they want? He's not up for reelection for four more years. West Virginia is a red state, so if he loses the primary, the Democrats likely lose the seat. If they throw him out of the party or remove committee assignments he can give control of the Senate to the GOP. You just have a fantasy of control here that doesn't exist.

And lol at GOP Senate leadership being more effective at this. Republicans passed a tax cut, but failed to pass even the skinny repeal of ACA because of defections from their own purple-state moderate members. Democrats treat McConnell like he is a god, while he is currently being yanked around and humiliated by his own party.

Joe Biden is not a Senator.

Alternatively, Manchin can just say no (as he did), and the rest of the party has to just eat it. "Manchin is then given a reason" WTF kind of analysis is this.

West Virginians presumably. I don't think politicians best represent their constituents by just doing whatever survey shows has majority support, as I frequently tell my Republican friends.

Okay, go ahead with your Constitutional Amendment to get rid of the Senate then.

You have a very bizarre idea of what is not important.


Election Planks of the party you run under are always important.

Again that does not mean Joe Manchin should not voice his views and try to get them considered but if singular individuals within a party can scuttle all major planks simply because they were elected earlier anyone with sense would see how that could destroy the chances of the party in power for future elections.

That is exactly why the whip function exists.

In the give and take that MUST exist within parties, this 'give' is definitely on Manchin and not Biden.

And as I said, it is not even a hard thing for Biden to do. Tie it to the broader covid package and then Manchin can begrudgingly go along saying he supports one but not the other. Easy peasy.

And you are playing games with our 'Biden is not in the Senate' as you know Kamala (whom I mentioned) is and if Joe says this is a necessary thing to do, Kamala will support it and they can whip the vote.

And again, I ask, which you conveniently ignored, who is Joe fighting for on this? His own constituents overwhelming want this in his State and it breaks out even more starkly when you look at those who vote for a Democrat.

So is Joe going to vote against a covid bill, with stimulus, which is also enormously popular with his voting base to keep out a minimum wage that is also overwhelming popular?

Oh poor Joe Manchin, to be forced to do something that is overwhelming popular. How will he justify that given his 2018 mandate? LOL.

You are spewing corporate Dem nonsense. The only constituency who Joe and others in the Dem would face any backlash from, their corporate donors.

Would you admit that last sentence prior is accurate? If not who do you think Joe faces backlash from and support that with some data please?

Oh and too the point Mitch had defections on the ACA vote, the lesson learned there was that overwhelming voter support matters and has political consequences even if your corporate interests want you to go against them.

The republicans were trying to push something directly counter to what their voters wanted because of corporate money. It cost them big time as they lost the midterms and other power.

Now you have the Dem's repeating that mistake but in even a worse way. They actually have the power to pass the enormously popular legislation in the way i detail above. The corporate donors say 'we don't want it, get rid of it', and the Dems say 'give us a minute and we will find a reason to do just that', in defiance of what Voters want and were promised.

In the term of culpability i blame the Dems far more than Mitch. MItch tried to do something he did not have voter support for, not even close ...and he failed. The voter voice won.

The Dems are trying to do something that they have overwhelming support for and that is enormously popular and that is within their power and are instead latching on to excuses not to do it, ...to deliver instead to their donors.

A massive mistake.

Does anyone think the Dems failing now can make this an election plank of 2022 Midterms. 'Elect us and we will get you $15 MW'? What about 2024 if they fail to deliver twice?

Politics of old, back again so soon from the Dems despite that being what created Trump? Promise whatever you think gets you in, and then turn against it, finding reasons not to do after to appease donors. Sad.

Okay, but as a matter of fact, US Senators are mostly independent power bases and the US Senate was originally designed for them to be that way. Senate leadership has little leverage over individual members and so can't do much to whip Senators to vote for legislation they don't support normally. Here, where you only have 50 Democratic Senators and so you have to get 100% support, it is even more difficult.

Uh-huh. Like what? You think Senate leadership can go to Manchin and plausibly say, we won't pass COVID package unless you agree to $15 minimum wage? Manchin would laugh at them. What should they offer to him? Tell me specifics here. More funding for coal plants and give up on clean energy priorities? Well, now you're running into problems with other Senators. Tell me what leverage there is here beyond pablum about imaginary "citizen's mandates."

How about this - normally "whipping" Senators works through a process of negotiation where leadership proposes compromises to get wobbly Senators onside. For instance, Manchin says he supports an $11 minimum wage. Maybe leadership could get him up to $12. Would you support that?

No, Kamala is not in the Senate either, and you don't know what whipping the vote actually entails.

I didn't ignore it, I specifically answered your question. You have the populist assumption that politicians should just nod along with whatever idea has majority support. I don't. I think politicians should generally vote for what they think is right.

Yes. Because right after that Senate leadership will propose the same bill without a minimum wage provision, and he can vote for that and demonstrate his power and they will look like idiots.

Again, your power fantasies aren't real. No one can force Manchin to do this if he doesn't want to. Also, mandates are only as real as Congress decides to treat them.

Nah, you're just defaulting to ad hominem because you don't understand how American government works and are angry that legislation you support didn't have enough votes and so must find a convenient villain and corporations are always useful for that.

What are you talking about? The ACA was under 50% approval for almost all of Obama's presidency and Republicans ran and won on repeal-and-replace up through Trump in 2016. Even McCain said he supported repeal-and-replace, but that he opposed skinny repeal because it was incomplete and that this kind of legislation needed to be passed through regular Senate procedure.

A common tic of populists is to blame the entire party for the actions of a couple legislators. Also, I see now you are making up a "voter voice" along with a "citizen's mandate." We have a representative democracy, which means that voter's input is in selecting politicians, not deciding legislation.

I agree, Democrats shouldn't campaign on a $15 minimum wage unless they think it has a plausible chance of passing. Of course they can and should state whether they support it as policy, but they should focus in their campaigning on legislation they think is likely to pass if they retain their majority.

First off I am not going to explain to Kamala's role as you are playing semantic games or you are just ignorant if you do not know what it is. GO educate yourself and return with a relevant point on that.

To the other point, this is not about bribing Manchin. I am saying put forth legislation that has BOTH, the Covid relief package AND the $15 minimum wage in it and force Joe to either vote for in totality of scuttle in totality.

Something that is one of the oldest ways utilized to get certain politicians to hold their nose and vote for one thing, they see as necessary while another thing they may oppose hides below it.


And i know you know this as I have seen you discuss re various Bernie votes in the past. SO again you seem to have far more interest in playing dumb and acting as if you do not know what is meant, if not spelled out directly to you (as you are with the Kamala situation) instead of just addressing the issues.

They probably don't want to play chicken with the relief bill and fail to help millions of people, especially since the only gain from a failure to pass it is to embarrass the vote in the senate they actually need.

Politics is compromise, when you don't compromise you don't achieve much to write home about. 4 years of Trump starting with a triple-GOP federal government and the result was a big tax cut for the wealthy, some federal judges, half a million dead Americans and trillions lost. The rest is being dismantled since it was executive orders, memorandums or just silly tweets.

Of course, the appearance of politics is another matter. In that perspective, compromise is the weakest of all politics.

Kamala has a vote on tied legislation. That is it. This doesn't give her any more leverage over Manchin than the other 49 Democrats in the Senate - less, since she can't propose legislation, cosponsor legislation, etc. Of course, Biden can negotiate with Manchin as President, but then tell me what the offer is.

Yeah, you don't see the lines of power here. Manchin can afford to outwait Senate leadership and Joe Biden. He doesn't have to worry about the 2022 midterm. He benefits from looking independent of Democratic leadership with his red-state voters. Meanwhile Biden and Senate leadership have all of their interest groups and donors putting pressure on them to pass COVID relief legislation ASAP. Schumer needs to worry about protecting vulnerable Senators in order to maintain control of the Senate. You don't seem to realize that the possibility in principle of using leverage to get a Senator to change their vote doesn't mean that such leverage actually exists.

I'm not playing dumb, I'm pointing out that your analysis here is garbage. Democrats barely have control of the Senate, Joe Manchin is a red-state Democrat, and you mewl about how Democrats just don't have enough will and desire to pass legislation you support. No, they don't have enough votes. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can will and desire to pass legislation all they want, but actually passing a $15 minimum wage requires getting enough legislators to support it. They don't. This isn't a surprise - Joe Manchin has been upfront about not supporting the $15 minimum wage. You evidently think they can just steamroll him into supporting it anyway, but provide no answer as to how.

There really is no chicken there.

There is a history of this being done in the Senate as so many like to use against Bernie, showing how they got him to vote in favour of legislation he never would stand alone but felt he had no choice when tied to other more important legislation.

Joe Manchin would be the singular most hated politician buy the voting public if he was seen as the guy who scuttles both the covid relief and the $15 minimum wage. And again for what? For whom? Which voter base, which constituency is he trying to pretend his high moral, unyielding position is based on?

You notice how no one who addresses this never wants to address that elephant in the room as they KNOW Manchin's own State citizens heavily favour this especially those who vote Dem.

If/when Manchin scuttles both on behalf of whom will he claim he had to hold to this moral high ground?

Yeah, at the end of the day Manchin and Sienema can say “look I will support a focused covid bill that doesn’t try to backdoor in an unrelated min wage hike”. Since 0 senate dems are willing to not pass covid relief unless it has a min wage increase, the issue is done. It would be an interesting negotiation, with a high potential of everything just blowing up like Obamacare repeal, if even 1 dem felt that strongly about min wage, but nobody does.

Like I said I don't think you are interested in honest debate. You are interested in playing politics with the issue.

The process is simple.

- Biden makes it 100% clear that he considers this a foundational item of his presidency and a REASON why they got elected. It is his view this is foundational and must pass

- Kamala indicates to the Senate she is prepared and going to cast the tie breaking vote if, a s expected the Republicans all vote again

- This isolates Manchin i the position of spoiler and puts him under the magnifying glass

The FACT that the Dem and Independent voters overwhelmingly support this and even republican voters in his State do too allows for an easy pressure campaign to be put on Manchin.

In compromise Kamala or Biden can tell him they will do polling within his constituency to ensure he can feel good that he is 'in fact' representing this constituents. It is a veiled threat to out him which he will recognize and never want done outing that, in fact, he is representing donors in his objection and not constituents.

Again, who is Manchin pretending that he has the moral highground to stand his ground to represent?

The only ones against this literally are the various business lobbies.

NEW POLLING COMMISSIONED BY NELP: VOTERS AGREE—RAISING THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE TO $15 IS GOOD FOR EVERYONE



Recent battleground Congressional district polling confirms that swing district voters overwhelmingly side with workers leading the fight to raise the federal minimum wage to $15. Across all demographics, voters confirm that this is a policy that is good for workers and good for their communities.

Between January 22 and February 1, 2021, in a poll commissioned by NELP, Hart & Associates polled 2020 general election voters in the nation’s 67 most competitive Congressional districts. Fully 62% of those polled, including 59% in the districts won by Republicans, favored raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025

BTW, saying the 'Dems are not willing to gamble' is the same as saying 'the Dems are weak and have no will to fight for their positions'.

Tying legislation is one of the oldest Senate tricks. When a extremely popular bill is going thru that they know there will be a political cost, if voted against then it is common to attach a less popular one to it, to sneak it thru.

Even Bernie, on his high moralistic horse would not scuttle deeply needed bills out of principle and held his nose to parts he would never otherwise vote for.

The GOP knew that and had the courage to put him and others to that test. Why? Because they really wanted those lesser elements passed.

This one is a no brainer for Dems. It has none of the challenges. Both pieces of legislation (Covid and $15 MW) enjoy immense popularity amongst the voting public ESPCIACLLY the types of voters Manchin relies upon. He improves his position amongst them with that vote.

Yes he costs himself donor support, maybe, but that is it.

Let's say that Manchin says no to this pressure. What happens then? Your plan is that Biden and Democratic leadership refuse to pass COVID relief if Manchin doesn't agree to $15 minimum wage. It is possible that Manchin says no. He doesn't have to run for reelection until 2024. Do you think the President and other Democrats, even though they have the votes, will then decide to not pass COVID relief?

I think the chance of that is nearly zero. I assume Manchin and Senate leadership also recognize that. A threat that isn't credible isn't effective leverage. Thus the threat isn't made because doing so would mostly end up showing the weakness of leadership and worsen their relationship with Manchin (and Sinema).

Why don't you answer this rebuttal to your argument which I and others here have made instead of just repeating yourself and accusing me of dishonesty.

Again, who are we pretending Manchin is 'holding his moral ground' position for?

What price are we lying to ourselves to pretend he pays in his next election if he supports this?







Even a divided America agrees on raising the minimum wage

Even with the historic 2020 election behind us, the American electorate seems as divided as ever. The margin of victory separating President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden in several swing states is less than 1%, and if Republicans hang onto one of their two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia during the January runoff election, America will begin next year with a divided government.

Despite this, Election Day proved there is one policy area where Americans are increasingly not divided: raising the minimum wage.

The election results in Florida illustrate this shift in public opinion. A ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage from $8.56 to $15 per hour by 2026 passed with the support of more than 60% of voters. Its success is noteworthy in Florida—a red state with two Republican Senators, a Republican-controlled state legislature, and a Republican governor who opposed the minimum wage hike. Trump secured more than half of the votes in the state, which means that upwards of 1 million Florida voters cast a ballot for the president and for the minimum wage increase.

While Florida’s split vote may seem counterintuitive, in fact, recent polls suggest it is consistent with widespread public opinion. Two-thirds (67%) of Americans surveyed last year by the Pew Research Center expressed support for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour...



-----------------------

Joe relies on Dem's and Independents so lets see how people spin this little lie they like to tell themselves before going to bed.

Your question is silly.

it is the type of hypothetical that invalidates pretty much every piece of legislation where this tactic has been used in the past.

If parties let the 'what if the hold out in a scorched earth gambit on us and a lose, lose' ... then they don't deserve power.

As I write above this is not something deeply unpopular like 'gay marriage' in a very conservative area that might actually see someone lose votes.

Manchin only stands to GAIN votes by finding it within himself to hold his nose and vote in favour.

if your party is not willing to press when it is actually good for their Senators electoral chances then, again, they need to never get power again.

It is so easy for Biden and Harris to put pressure on Manchin and for Manchin to give rationalization as to why he changed. If Manchin wants or needs a REASON, then agree to a poll of constituents 'to ensure they are ok with Manchin changing'. It will pass overwhelming. Done. He has his reason and just has to say 'things change, and my constituents have changed, so I will represent their will'.


The problem is the corporate Dems don't really want this and are hiding behind this convenient excuse to not do it.

I cannot even imagine them fighting for something that was actually tough to get. Where they might even have to bully or put real pressure (threats) to get everyone in line.

Here they have a win/win. They can enact a major policy plank and help Manchin be even more popular in his own State and they say 'oh no, we don't want to do that'. lol.

Not mine, the people would benefit from multi party system but so far they haven't quite figured it out.

A few more Trumps and we'll either be under a president for life like Putin or have a much more representative democracy like the rest of the civilized world.

But the current system is dog ****. It's going to change one way or the other.

As I said, garbage analysis. You won't even consider the obvious possible downside outcomes of your recommended strategy. I am positive that Manchin's political advisors see that Senate leadership can't credibly threaten to not pass COVID relief and so tell him he can ignore any threats to do so.

You think because this kind of tactic works some of the time that it can work all of the time. That's not true. In fact, people often try to get things added as riders to certain-to-pass bills like defense appropriations and fail for the same lack of credibility reason as you see here. We saw the GOP shut the government down using this tactic against Obama and it failed.

You are the person recommending a scorched earth gambit, saying that Senate leadership should refuse to put forward a COVID relief bill that doesn't include a $15 minimum wage. You also think they should ignore the normal rules of the Senate in doing so. You also refuse to countenance a compromise.

Okay, go vote for Republicans or Greens or something then.

What's best for the senators is the bribes they take from corporate donors.