Senate Hikes Minimum Wage

February 1, 2007— -- After weeks of debate and parliamentary wrangling, the Senate passed a long-awaited $2.10 increase in the minimum wage by an overwhelming margin of 94-3 -- the first such hike in a decade, though it will be spread over two years.

Raising the minimum wage, usually a rallying cry for more progressive or liberal Democrats, became an unlikely but effective campaign issue in the 2006 midterm elections that, along with voter frustration over the war in Iraq and perceived corruption on Capitol Hill, brought them back in control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years.

A similar bill to increase the minimum wage passed the House of Representatives in January, but that measure did not include tax breaks for small businesses, which have been tacked onto the Senate bill so that it can gain enough votes to overcome Republican opposition.

House and Republican negotiators will have to hammer out a compromise bill before the wage hike can be sent to the President for his signature. Bush has indicated he will sign the legislation as long as it still includes the small business tax breaks added in the Senate.

Accusations of Delay

While the Senate bill eventually gained a majority of Republican and Democratic votes, arguments over the bill's substance have persisted for two weeks. Democrats claim that Republicans purposely held up the bill, attempting to kill the measure with unsuccessful and unrelated "poison pill" amendments that would have doomed its passage.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republican leaders on Tuesday of stretching out a vote on final passage for the minimum wage hike because, he said, they want to put off debate on a non-binding senate resolution disapproving of President Bush's Iraq policy. Reid has said debate on the Iraq measure will follow the final minimum wage vote.

"Let's talk about the people who are left waiting," said Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

Kennedy, who took the Senate floor several times over the past two weeks to passionately argue on behalf of the wage hike, contined to say, "They are men and women of dignity, who perform some of the most difficult and important jobs in our society. They care for out children in day care centers.  They care for our elderly in nursing homes.  They clean our hotel rooms and buildings of commerce.  They are our friends and neighbors.  They are even our nation's military families."

"After 10 years of waiting, 10 long years of procedural trickery and political game-playing, there is no more reason, not even the flimsiest excuse for delay?" Kennedy declared.

Republicans, meanwhile, complained that Democrats were trying to abridge their right to amend the minimum wage bill and attempts by Republicans to attach a contentious but unrelated line item veto measure failed.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., attempted to add the line item veto measure to the lobby reform bill that passed the Senate earlier this month. He was promised a vote (which failed) on the measure in exchange for removing it from the lobby reform bill.

"Democrats campaigned for the last two years on reform yet blocked a common sense measure designed to do just that," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., last week after Democrats killed the line item veto by requiring that it receive 60 votes with a procedural "cloture" vote instead of an up or down simple majority vote.

"Twenty Democrats currently in the Senate supported a similar measure when it was proposed in 1995, yet today they refused to allow even a simple yes or no vote.  Americans demanded reform and we owe it to them.  If we are going to continue to pass real reforms, we must put politics aside and get to work," McConnell insisted.

Republican amendments to give states flexibility in whether or not to adhere to the minimum wage and to repeal some income tax levied on social security benefits were also rejected. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., however, successfully added an unrelated provision that would prohibit businesses caught employing illegal or undocumented immigrants from receiving government contracts.

Wage Hike Close, But Not Complete

McConnell made a procedural motion requiring that Democrats get 60 votes to pass the minimum wage bill, ensuring that the bill would have the small business tax breaks. That 60-vote hurdle was easily cleared on Tuesday with support of all but ten of the 97 Senators who voted.

And although the Senate passed the wage hike late on Thursday, the process of negotiation with the House could take much longer. Despite widespread support by a majority of Congress, a minimum wake hike, though one step closer, could still be weeks from final resolution.