Tell Your Members of Congress: Fight for a $15/Hour Minimum Wage Now!

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Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15/hour is the single most effective legislative step to lift families out of poverty and combat growing inequality in wealth and economic power. That’s why it was a winning issue that Democrats campaigned on. Though inclusion of an increased minimum wage did not make it into last week's budget bill, it can be added back in this week. So in addition to the proposed child poverty provisions, I urge you to include an increased minimum wage to the Covid Relief package or the forthcoming economic emergency bill. If necessary, either end the filibuster or exempt emergency legislation from filibuster sabotage in order to get it passed.

If at the end of the day, for some reason it proves impossible to unite all 50 Democratic senators around an eventual $15/hour minimum wage for all, then I urge you to explore alternatives. For example, a two-tier minimum wage -- a somewhat lower one for low-cost-of-living rural zones and a $15/hour minimum for higher-expense metropolitan statistical areas. Or some other adjustment if that's the only way to get all 50 Democrats on board.

[Senate only] And, if the Parliamentarian advises that a minimum wage is barred from a reconciliation bill by the Byrd Rule, I urge the Senate to reject the Parliamentarian's opinion as the Senate is legally empowered to do and it has done in the past.

Background

For more than 100 years, from the end of the Civil War to 1970, the only bills ever killed by filibusters (from a Dutch word for “pirate”) were proposed civil-rights law that would have curtailed racist discrimination against nonwhite people or expanded voting rights for people of color. In 1970, there was broad national support for ending the Electoral College and electing the president by national popular vote. But racist conservatives in the South and West feared that Black and Latino voters newly enfranchised by the Voting Rights Act might someday combine with liberals in northern cities to elect a progressive to the White House. Led by the arch-segregationists Eastland and Thurmond, they successfully filibustered to ensure that the Electoral College's state-by-state winner-take-all rules would continue to nullify nonwhite votes. Since then, the Senate filibuster has been consistently used to block a wide range of legislation of benefit to We the People that right-wing authoritarians and corporate representatives oppose.

When Senate majorities are narrow, as they usually are, the filibuster allows a stubborn minority to block Senate business. So over the years, the rules were amended to exempt certain topics from being filibustered, such as cabinet and judicial confirmations. When it became impossible to pass a budget, the Senate set up the “Reconciliation” process to exempt one budget-related bill per year from the filibuster . But conservatives feared that liberals might sneak some progressive civil rights, domestic spending, or social-welfare provisions into that one bill, so they enacted the “Byrd Rule” to limit what could go into it. It's called the “Byrd Rule” because it was promulgated by the arch-conservative Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) who is famous for leading the 83-day filibuster against passage of the Civil Rights Act.

If the Senate Parliamentarian advises that a minimum wage increase does not meet the Byrd test, the presiding officer (Harris or Leahy) has the authority to reject that advice. If the presiding officer rules that a minimum wage provision can be included in the Relief Bill, Republicans will appeal it to the chamber, and that appeal will be voted up or down by a simple majority vote. If Democrats stand together they can uphold the ruling of the chair and include a minimum wage provision in the Relief bill.

References

Interactve map on $15/hour minimum wage ~ EPI, 2021.

House Democrats unveil draft coronavirus relief legislation ~ The Hill, 2/8/21

CBO says $15 minimum wage would increase deficit $54B ~ The Hill, 2/8/21

CBO analysis … (rebuttal) ~ EPI, 2/8/21

The Filibuster That Saved the Electoral College ~ NY Times, 2/8/21

The Budget Reconciliation Process: The Senate’s “Byrd Rule” ~ Congressional Research Service

Byrd Rule Summary ~ House Rules Committee

The Office of the Parliamentarian in the House and Senate ~ Congressional Research Service