8 Senate Democrats Join Republicans in Rejecting Bernie Sanders’ $15 Minimum Wage Hike Bill

Eight Democratic senators joined Republicans in rejecting raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour over five years after it was proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), and Angus King (I-Vt.)—who caucuses with Democrats—opposed the measure, joining all Republicans in the upper chamber. Coons and Carper are considered two close allies of President Joe Biden, who was formerly a senator from Delaware.

The final vote tally was 42–58, falling far short of the 60 votes needed to overrule the Senate parliamentarian’s decision that a minimum wage increase can’t be embedded in a broader COVID-19 stimulus bill.

Sinema tweeted she supports raising the minimum wage, which was last increased more than a decade ago as she knows “what it is like to face tough choices while working to meet your family’s most basic needs.”

“Senators in both parties have shown support for raising the federal minimum wage and the Senate should hold an open debate and amendment process on raising the minimum wage, separate from the COVID-focused reconciliation bill,” she said on Twitter.

Manchin, perhaps the most centrist Democrat in the Senate, previously said in an interview with The Hill that he doesn’t support the $15 per hour increase, remarking that he’s open to raising the minimum wage to something that is “responsible and reasonable.” In West Virginia, his home state, he suggested that it should be $11 per hour when adjusted for inflation.

The move drew condemnation from progressive Democrats and Sanders himself. Some called for the eight senators to be primaried.

"8 Senate Democrats Join Republicans in Rejecting Bernie Sanders’ $15 Minimum Wage Hike Bill"

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

Post-17th Amendment (17A) ratification senators who support Sen. Sanders' unconstitutional minimum wage bill need to be kicked out of Congress imo for once again trying to unconstitutionally expand the already unconstitutionally big federal government's power imo.

More specifically, patriots are reminded that the Founding States had decided not to give the feds the specific power to regulate INTRAstate minimum wage when they ratified the Constitution.

From related threads…

Regardless what FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist judges wanted everybody to think about the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers when they wrongly decided Wickard v. Filburn in Congress’s favor imo, Justice Joseph Story had previously used “the wages of labor” as an example of a power that the Commerce Clause does not give to Congress.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments [emphases added]." —"Justice Joseph Story, Commerce Clause (1.8.3), 1833.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.

The main reason that patriots are now being oppressed under the boots of unconstitutionally big federal government is this imo.

Regardless that the last of state sovereignty-respecting majority Supreme Court justices had clarified the fed's constitutionally limited powers in United States v. Butler, using inappropriate words like “concept" and “implied,” FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices later scandalously initiated the politically correct repeal of the 10th Amendment (10A) in Wickard v. Filburn (Wickard).

"10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
"In discussion and decision, the point of reference, instead of being what was "necessary and proper" to the exercise by Congress of its granted power, was often some concept [???] of sovereignty thought to be implicit [??? emphases added] in the status of statehood." —Wickard v. Filburn, 1942.

And since the time of Wickard, generations of misguided voters have unthinkingly abused their 17A voting power to not only finish off 10A, but have also effectively nullified the Constitution’s Article V amendment process.

Voters have done so by electing corrupt senators who promise constitutionally indefensible federal spending programs to get themselves elected by us low-information deplorables, regardless what the states that they're supposed to be protecting from federal government overreach want.

But more specifically, what's happening is this. Clueless local and state government leaders who unthinkingly beg corrupt Congress for funding for state programs evidently don't understand the following.

The "federal" funding that state leaders regularly beg Congress for is arguably state revenues that the feds have stolen from the states by means of unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot justify under its limited constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

As a side note to this post, please consider the following.

Possibly a good way for patriots to challenge federal government’s constitutionally limited powers is for pro-2nd Amendment (2A) patriots, in addition to continuing to argue 2A, also argue that the states have never expressly constitutionally given the feds the specific power to make peacetime restrictive gun laws.

Patriots who accept my challenge please report blank look responses to missing federal powers to make peacetime restrictive gun laws back to FR.

Getting back to the unconstitutionally big federal government, the remedy for unconstitutional federal mayhem is this imo.

Patriots need to wake their local and state lawmakers up to the fed's constitutionally limited powers to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes.

After unconstitutional "federal" taxes are stopped, the states will ultimately find a tsunami of new revenues that they arguably won't know what to do with imo.

And to make such changes permanent, the states need to repeal the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments yesterday.

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