Having the minimum wage be a separate vote could be a boon for the Democrats, politically. One extra difficult vote that Republicans are likely to be on the opposite side of the majority of the American people.
True, if that actually happens. If they keep saying ‘we really need to raise the minimum wage!’ up to the point of the vote and then vote to pass the rest of the bill without the wage increase, however, that’s a different matter; and that looks to me to be the more likely actual outcome.
Making it a seperate vote means a seperate bill, which means it will be subject to the filibuster.
Yes, but either way, we don’t have the votes right now. Not enough votes to overrule the parliamentarian, and not enough votes to remove (or override) the filibuster. The focus should be on Manchin.
Just a point, here. It’s up to the presiding officer of the Senate to decide whether to accept the judgement of the Parliamentarian, or ignore it. If the recommendation is ignored, then a member of the Senate can raise a point-of-order objection. To uphold that objection requires the affirmation of 3/5ths of the Senate.
Thus, VP Harris could just thank the Parliamentarian for her advice, and then overrule it. If the Republicans complain, they will need 10 Democrats to go along to remove the offending passage.
This has been done before, most recently in 1975. From Wikipedia:
The Byrd Rule does not prevent the inclusion of extraneous provisions, but relies on objecting senators to remove provisions by raising procedural objections.[12] Any senator may raise a procedural objection to a provision believed to be extraneous, which will then be ruled on by the Presiding Officer, customarily on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian: a vote of 60 senators is required to overturn their ruling. While the Vice President (as President of the Senate) can overrule the parliamentarian, this has not been done since 1975.[13]
I’ve seen this argument, but I’m not convinced. Josh Marshall of TPM did a deep dive into it a few days ago and concluded it’s probably not within the rules. Notably, Bernie Sanders is not pushing it, which leads me to believe he doesn’t think it’s within the rules either.
Have any progressive Senators or Representatives actually threatened to vote against the stimulus bill if their preferred bits aren’t in it? Or is this just the usual SDMB suspects getting sputteringly angry about progressives having the nerve to exist at all?
Josh Marshall seems to think there’s merit to the idea:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-this-vp-harris-gambit-real
Bernie Sanders made noises about not allowing the bill to get out of committee without a vigorous discussion about it, but it is pretty much moot at this point because the Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a minimum wage hike did not fall under rules allowing to pass a bill containing them via reconciliation. It is true that it is unlikely to pass in a separate bill due to universal opposition by Republicans (even those not aligned with CPAC) so baring some electoral miracle in 2022, it just isn’t going to happen without some kind of massive compromise if at all. Which makes it a pointless issue to make a rage about because there is nothing Biden could do about it even if he vigorously supported it.
Democratic dairy: all churn, no butter.
Stranger
The next day, after some digging, he changes his mind (more or less):
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-thoughts-on-the-dems-minimum-wage-puzzle
THAT was uncalled-for. 
That’s still not the same thing as blocking it; at least unless he would have flat out refused to let it out of committee after the discussion, or would have insisted that the discussion drag on and on and on.
ETA: @iiandyiiii that story’s only available to members past the first few lines.
Well, that is the implication, and Bernie Sanders didn’t get the Senate nickname “King of Amendments” just for his deft knowledge of parliamentary procedure; he’s well-known for getting his way by threatening to block legislation unless he can get a rider on it. But, as noted above, it is a moot point since a minimum wage hike cannot be passed through reconciliation anyway. The essential point, however, remains: if progressives want a legislature that won’t totally block out every part of their agenda, they should be supporting Biden now while extracting promises for support in the future, as the alternative is a fistful of nothing.
Stranger
I certainly agree that such a move is politically unsound, and no one in the Senate is considering it. Nor am I recommending that they do, at least not yet.
But is it technically inaccurate? I was merely pointing out there there is no vote to overrule the Parliamentarian; rather the vote is to uphold the Parliamentarian’s decision. Some right-wing groups seem to be pulling a lot of hair over the possibility:
I’m not trying to be contrarian; I just find some of these political arcana fascinating
Sorry, forgot about the paywall for that TPM link – here is the notable portion:
"Yesterday I wrote that it seemed like advocates were right when they claimed that Vice President Harris could reverse the decision in a way that required 60 senators to, in turn, overrule her. (It’s a bit convoluted; here’s the post from yesterday that walks through it.) Since I wrote that post I’ve found out some more information that suggests the 60 vote thing isn’t even real. Or rather that it would take 60 votes to overrule Harris and if that vote failed then they could vote again and on the second round would only need 51 votes, which would make the whole thing a mirage.
It’s notable that Senator Sanders, the person more out front on the policy question than anyone in the senate or maybe in the entire party isn’t pushing this gambit. I suspect that’s because it’s not real."
Fair enough. Certainly, untangling legal challenges should anyone try this gambit would be a significant distraction, muddling whatever the original message was.
Not a tenable approach, in my estimation.
Thanks!
So what do you Dopers think Biden ought to do with regard to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline? It seems there is bipartisan support for sanctions against companies who worked on or insured the pipeline. AS VP Biden was against it. Now, he seems to be wavering in order to mend relations with Germany (who wants it). It is nearly complete and could be operational this summer. It a complicated issue but Wikipedia has a somewhat lengthy summary that explains it.
The thing that could potentially still happen if the Democrats act quickly is putting tax incentives in place for companies that pay all of their employees at least $X/hr.
I think at least talking a big game now is worth it for the progressives for multiple reasons. First of all, there aren’t many opportunities to push legislation through reconcilliation, and there probably isn’t going to be another reconcilliation bill like this where there is the perfect storm of new majorities/administrations wanting to make their mark and an obvious need for big legislative action to help a struggling American public. Second, securing promises from the establishment is something progressives have been able to deliver on multiple issues. The issue they have is turning those promises into action. There are always going to be legislative hangups, and there are always an ideologically diverse coalition on the left side of the aisle. The progressives need to strategically pick fights where they can make some of their terms actionable. Third, the nature of their relationship with the establishment is basically guaranteed to be adversarial. They just don’t see eye to eye with the establishment and they stand more to gain by acknowledging this and applying pressure when they can. It can be a tough needle to thread at times because the two sides haven’t completely declared war on each other, but I think it’s more important for the progressives to be a pressure group and use the fact that the establishment currently can’t afford to burn the bridge.
The thing the progressives absolutely should not do is allow this negotiation to result in killing the bill or even creating a gap in benefits due to delay. They’ll simultaneously damage their own small caucus, the Democrats tiny majority and millions of Americans living check to check if they do that. Personally I’m confident that everyone is going to meet and come to some kind of agreement and we’ll avoid that outcome, but if the progressives make that impossible I’ll absolutely criticize them for it.
I don’t think we can count on that. They are notoriously short-sighted and don’t play well with others.
I hope you are right.
Well, if that don’t scare ‘em, nuttin’ will.