Thread by @sahilkapur

NOW: @BernieSanders is introducing an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour in the Covid relief bill.

It doesn't have 50 votes at this stage and it's subject to being removed under reconciliation rules. But it looks like he intends to put every senator on the record.

Bernie Sanders, making the case for a $15 minimum wage, argues that some Americans are "giving up on democracy and moving toward authoritarianism" out of desperation, because the government keeps passing economic policies that ignore their needs and makes rich people richer.

"I think the parliamentarian was dead wrong," @BernieSanders says of the minimum wage ruling, decrying the "absurd process that we allow an unelected staffer" in the Senate to decide "whether 30 million Americans get a pay raise or not."

Senate is voting now on a @BernieSanders motion aimed at adding a $15 minimum wage in the Covid bill.

So what's happening?

This item was found to have violated by Byrd rule.

But that can be overridden with 60 votes, which is what Sanders is trying to do.

(It won't get 60.)

This Senate minimum wage vote has been held open for more than one and a half hour. Everyone has voted but it hasn't been called yet.

The Senate is poised to reject Sanders' motion to allow a $15 minimum wage in the Covid bill.

Along with all 50 Republicans, these 8 Democrats have cast votes to kill it:

Carper
Coons
Hassan
King
Manchin
Shaheen
Sinema
Tester

(Vote not officially called yet. It's been hours.)

This vote needed 60 and is falling well short with 42. Dems still have a ways to go to get a majority on $15.

Technically a senator can change their vote but it’s been open for 4 hrs so they would have by now. (And a standard caveat: King is an independent caucusing with Dems.)