The 22 Dems Supporting Sanders' $15 Minimum Wage Bill… and 24 Who Aren't
With four times as many Democratic co-sponsors as he had just two years ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday morning re-introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
“We’ve gone from laughable to inevitable.”
—Terrence Wise, Fight for $15
In 2015, Sanders introduced similar legislation with just five co-sponsors. On Wednesday, he boasted 22, in addition to lead co-sponsor Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). They are:
- Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
- Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)
- Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)
- Cory Booker (D-N.J.)
- Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)
- Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)
- Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
- Al Franken (D-Minn.)
- Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)
- Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)
- Tim Kaine (D-Va.)
- Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
- Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
- Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)
- Jack Reed (D-R.I.)
- Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)
- Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
- Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
- Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
- Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
[This list has been updated to reflect Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s support.]
That means the following Democratic senators aren’t on board:
- Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)
- Ben Cardin (D-Md.)
- Thomas Carper (D-Del.)
- Bob Casey (D-Pa.)
- Chris Coons (D-Del.)
- Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.)
- Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.)
- Tammy Duckworth (D-Il.)
- Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.)
- Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)
- Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
- Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
- Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)
- Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)
- Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
- Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)
- Gary Peters (D-Mich.)
- Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)
- Jon Tester (D-Mont.)
- Tom Udall (D-N.M.)
- Mark Warner (D-Va.)
Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) will introduce companion legislation in the House. The Hill notes that the bill “stands little chance of passing in a Republican-controlled Congress, but could put pressure on GOP lawmakers to stand up for workers.”
Proponents introduced the Raise the Wage Act in front of the U.S. Capitol at a rally for Good Jobs Nation, a group of striking federal contract employees and allies demanding fair pay and a government that stands for workers. At the rally, progressive groups and leaders were joined by top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Schumer and Murray—who previously introduced a competing proposal to raise the wage to $12.
On Wednesday, Murray said she’d heard from local business owners in Seattle, which began implementing a $15 minimum wage in 2015, that raising worker pay was good for the economy.
Support from lawmakers like Murray and Schumer shows how the movement to raise the minimum wage has gone “from fringe to mainstream,” as Bloomberg wrote last month. Indeed, Wednesday’s announcement suggests that a $15 wage is now “party consensus,” economics editor Bryce Covert wrote at ThinkProgress.
As Sanders himself said on Facebook, “Just a few years ago, if you were to say that we need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, many people would say, ‘You’re crazy!’ But a grassroots movement of millions of workers, led by Good Jobs Nation and the SEIU, refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
The national Fight for $15 movement, backed by the SEIU, has certainly been instrumental. On Wednesday, Kansas City McDonald’s worker and Fight for $15 leader Terrence Wise urged people to”[t]hink back to five years ago: President [Barack] Obama had yet to call for even a $9 an hour federal minimum wage, and the two members of Congress brave enough to call for $10.10 an hour were considered crazy.”
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