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If the Senate Parliamentarian finds a provision in violation of the Byrd Rule, 60 Senators would have to overturn that decision in order to retain the redundant provision in the underlying bill, an extremely difficult hurdle to clear. But one idea currently being put forward by progressive activists is that Vice President Kamala Harris – or whoever presides over the Senate at the time – is simply ignoring the parliamentarian’s decision and letting the contested provision stay in the bill, a controversial issue. movement which, according to Senate experts, has not been employed since 1975 by then-vice-president Nelson Rockefeller.
Yet if Democrats followed this route and ignored the parliamentarian’s advice, it would at least cost them the support of Manchin – and potentially others, like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona.
“My only vote is to protect Byrd’s rule: hell or high water,” Manchin told CNN. “Everyone knows it. I fight for Byrd’s rule. The president knows it.”
When asked if he had informed the president of his position, Manchin replied bluntly: “All right”.
The push to include a federal wage hike to $ 15 an hour has become a sticky situation for Democrats as they seek to bolster the massive economic bailout by both houses of Congress by the first week of March . The House budget committee is expected to pull together individual elements of the proposal in the coming days before sending the far-reaching bill to the full House, which is expected to approve the plan at the end of next week.
House Budget Speaker John Yarmuth, a Kentucky Democrat who backs the minimum wage hike, was skeptical Tuesday that the hourly increase could survive the Senate’s strict budget rules, while even Biden himself expressed serious doubts about his survival in the Senate.
“I think the minimum wage is an effort to get through Byrd’s rule,” Yarmuth told CNN, noting its impact on deficits after the next decade. “I’m just not aware of the way they do this.”
Yarmuth said he expects his committee to vote to send the bill to the prosecution by the end of this week or by Monday, once his group goes through its own approval process. of the relief bill with the House parliamentarian to make sure it doesn’t go against it. budget reconciliation rules. Yarmuth added that House panels were already working privately to resolve disputes with Senate committees to speed up passage through both chambers.
“Our committees have worked with their committees all the time,” said Yarmuth.
If the massive measure is approved by the House next week, as scheduled, it will come to the Senate the following week. Since Democrats use fast-track budget procedures, known as reconciliation, the measure cannot be obstructed, meaning the bill can be approved by a simple majority of 51 senators – rather than 60 votes generally needed to overcome obstacles in the Senate. With a 50-50 stalemate, Harris would vote for the tiebreaker.
Because Democrats use the budget reconciliation process, they must adhere to the Byrd Rule, named after the late Senator Robert C. Byrd, whose seat now occupies the Manchin Seat.
Still, Sanders says he has lawyers and Senate rules experts on staff who plan to advocate for a favorable ruling with Senate MP Elizabeth MacDonough.
“The only way to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour is to raise it with 51 votes through a budget reconciliation,” said Sanders, who argued that a recent cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office reinforced its argument for keeping the provision in the invoice.
On Monday, Sanders told CNN: “We are going to make a point to the parliamentarian that we absolutely believe that raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour is in accordance with Senate rules and the reconciliation process.”
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