Crooked Media - What A Day: Wage war

The House is poised to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, but after the Senate parliamentarian determined that increasing the minimum wage isn’t compliant with congressional budget rules (and is thus subject to the filibuster), Democrats are at odds over how to proceed—at least on that issue.
 

• House Democrats are expected to pass the American Rescue Plan on Friday night, while Republicans band together in opposition to a bill that 68 percent of Americans support so they can yell dishonestly about the radical left. The House bill sets the minimum wage at $15, and includes $1400 direct payments, expansions of unemployment benefits and the child tax credit, $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, funding for vaccine distribution and coronavirus testing, and money for schools, among other measures.
   
• Once the legislation hits the Senate, things get a little messier. On Thursday, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that adjusting the minimum wage would violate the Senate’s strict budget-reconciliation rules. Vice President Kamala Harris could overrule that decision as president of the Senate, but the Biden administration has already announced that she won’t be doing that. Why not? We’ll get to that!
   
• If your reaction here was something like, “Seems wonky that one unelected person I’ve never heard of has this much control over whether 27 million Americans get a raise, based on arcane rules I have also never heard of,” you are not alone! A number of progressive Democrats have urged leaders to overrule the parliamentarian and/or abolish the filibuster, and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) even called on Senate Democrats to fire the parliamentarian. The GOP-controlled Senate did that in 2001, when the parliamentarian ruled that Republicans couldn’t pass the Bush tax cuts through reconciliation. Not something you hear swing voters complain about very often.

In lieu of telling the Senate referee to hit the road, Democratic leaders have begun exploring a possible workaround.
 

• After the ruling, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed imposing tax penalties on corporations that pay workers less than $15 an hour, the legislative Rube Goldberg version of increasing the minimum wage through the tax code. There’s a reason this was plan B—it would reach far fewer low-wage workers than a flat wage increase—but budget experts think that it would at least be permissible under the reconciliation rules. 
   
• A certain dynamic duo would still have to go for it, however. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have both come out in staunch opposition to including a $15 wage hike, which likely explains why the Biden administration isn’t champing at the bit to overrule the parliamentarian: It would set up a major intra-party fight, on a must-pass bill with a fast-approaching deadline. But if Kyrstanchema can’t be compelled to get on board now or nuke the filibuster, Democrats’ only option may be to compromise with Republicans on a standalone wage increase down the line, and the existing proposals are...not great. 

The bottom line is that if Democrats don’t use their Senate majority to change outlandish, antidemocratic rules (the filibuster, reconciliation limitations, or both) and start passing their wildly popular campaign promises, they’ll be stuck trying to explain the concept of a Senate parliamentarian to disillusioned midterm voters, while Republicans hang back and wait for their voter suppression traps to pay off. Please reread this digest and ask yourself if it sounds like a good campaign slogan. Best to start avoiding that scenario ASAP!

Our friend Ana Marie Cox released the 200th episode of With Friends Like These today!

With Friends Like These is one of the first shows we launched at Crooked, and it’s full of really thoughtful conversations and perspectives. If you haven’t checked it out already, now’s a great time to start. 

Subscribe to With Friends Like These on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts → 

A Trump-appointed federal judge struck down the CDC’s national eviction moratorium, in a bizarre opinion that may foreshadow how Trump judges abuse their power to try to sabotage the Biden administration. The Constitution’s commerce clause gives the federal government power to “regulate commerce...among the several states.” In Judge J. Campbell Barker’s warped view, federal regulation of evictions, including moratoriums enacted by Congress, don’t fall into that category because evicting someone from a rental home doesn't count as an “economic activity.” Even if you accept that claim (which, what?), Barker's opinion is at odds with several Supreme Court decisions. The thing is, the Biden administration will have to appeal his order to one of the most conservative circuit courts in the country, and then potentially to the newly far-right Supreme Court. If a higher court doesn’t overturn it, Barker’s opinion could endanger any federal regulation of the housing market, including bans on discrimination. 

Newly released emails from within the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan reveal that prosecutors were freaking the fuck out as one of their cases collapsed last year amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. In March 2020, the Justice Department successfully secured a conviction against an Iranian man accused of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran by funneling millions of dollars to his family business. The case then fell apart when it turned out the government had cheated by failing to hand over evidence favorable to the defense. In one internal exchange at the time, prosecutors wrote each other that “yeah, we lied” in a letter to the judge about a key document they had failed to share. Very cool and very ethical! Judge Nathan has referred lawyers at the U.S. attorney's office to the Office of Professional Responsibility, an aptly named DOJ unit that investigates attorney misconduct, but it doesn’t have the best reputation for efficiency or transparency. This week, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced bipartisan legislation that would give the DOJ inspector general the authority to investigate misconduct by department lawyers.

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The FDA’s vaccine-advisory panel has recommended authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine. Third highly effective vaccine incoming!

The Biden administration has agreed to buy 100,000 doses of Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody treatment, increasing the supply of lifesaving drugs for high-risk coronavirus patients.

A new study on the Pfizer vaccine has added to a growing body of evidence that the vaccines not only protect against serious infections, but stop transmission of the virus. 

Virginia Democrats are poised to pass a state-level Voting Rights Act, the first bill of its kind in the South.