January 30, 2007: 60 More Hours Making Minimum Wage

[19:11]
The Senate is done for the day.


[17:55]
Barack Obama (IL) is now speaking on Iraq.  Obama voted against giving the President the authority to go into Iraq (an 85-13 vote).  The need to bring this war to an end is here.  Obama is introducing an Iraq War de-escalation act, that would remove almost all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008.  Forces would be re-deployed to the U.S. and Afghanistan among other countries.  Obama did not speak long, only five minutes.


[15:40]
The Senate is currently in a quorum call.  The majority now wants to burn time.  Senate rules allow for 30 hours of debate on a bill (or an amendment) post-cloture.  At this point, germane amendments to the bill (or amendment) can still come up for a vote. The way the majority has structured this min wage bill is to offer a clean version of the bill (the house bill) and then proffer a so-called "substitute," technically an amendment to the "underlying" bill.  Here the substitute is a Baucus amendment that represents the dems' offer-in-compromise.  The Senate just this afternoon voted overwhelmingly (87-10) in favor of cloture (ending debate) on the substitute amendment.  Now, the minority is choosing not to forgo its right to have the underlying bill pass a cloture motion by roll-call vote (60 votes needed).  Even if the minority does not filibuster the underlying bill, this second cloture vote will still add 30 hours to the process. Even if the Senate works twelve-hour days, this is another two-and-a-half legislative days.  Ultimately, the debate over a Senate resolution on Iraq will not come for another week.  Five legislative days from here plus the weekend.

[16:20]
The Senate isn't doing much this afternoon.  Currently they are voting to confirm a judge, Lisa Godbey Wood, for U.S. District Court judge for southern Georgia.  Everyone is voting "aye."


[12:39]
In a surprisingly strong vote, the motion to limit debate on the substitute bill passed 87-10.  There are eight germane amendments remaining.  But it sounds like the Senate is required to get in 30 post-cloture hours of debate meaning that the soonest the final bill can be approved in the Senate is tomorrow.


[10:02]
Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) is laying out today's schedule.  The schedule for the afternoon depends on how the min wage cloture vote turns out.


Preview:
Last week, the majority motioned for cloture on the "clean" version of the minimum wage bill.  This is the version that came out of the House of Representatives, H.R. 2.  This cloture motion received only 51 votes, needing 60 to succeed.  Today, the Senate will vote on a cloture motion for the so-called "substitute" version of the min wage bill.  This substitute is basically a different form of the bill and represents a mild compromise with the minority because the substitute includes some tax breaks for small businesses.  However, based on debate last week and yesterday, the minority in the Senate does not seem to think that the substitute bill is enough of a compromise—the Republicans want more from this bill, probably in the form of more tax benefits for small businesses.  Republicans say that the minimum wage will hit small business owners too hard.  Tom Coburn (OK) argued yesterday that it would actually HURT those in his state currently making the minimum wage because it will raise their income to such a level that they will be eligible for less state aid (e.g. Medicaid) and will owe more in annual taxes.  Edward Kennedy, the Democratic sponsor of the bill, and a year-in, year-out champion of the minimum wage has accused the minority of "filibuster by amendment."

The Democrats needs 10 Republican votes on this bill, maybe more if one or two Dems votes with the Reps (unlikely).  If I had to list ten Reps that could make the cloture vote a success they would be: Snowe (ME), Collins (ME), Smith (OR), Coleman (MN), Warner (VA), Specter (PA)...that's only six.  I'm not seeing much hope for this cloture motion meaning the min wage bill will be stalled once again.  The Democratic leadership will have to decide whether it wants to sweeten the compromise or just move on to something else.