Tea-Publican Senators filibuster the minimum wage bill

Tea-Publicans in the millionaires’ Boys & Girls Club that is the U.S. Senate, Millionaires’ club: for first time, most lawmakers are worth $1 million-plus, today filibustered the minimum wage bill for low wage American workers struggling to get by.

In a real democracy with a simple majority vote, the bill actually passed 54-to 42, with Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) taking the procedural step of voting against the bill so that he can reintroduce it at a later time. Senate GOP blocks minimum wage increase:

The Senate voted on Wednesday against going ahead on a bill that would gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, another rejection for legislation that has been a major focus of the Democrats’ 2014 midterm campaign.

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Democrats needed to amass 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster of the bill, which was introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). But they were able to sway only one Republican — Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) — to vote in favor of proceeding.

[It’s time to fire ideologue Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake.]

Four senators — Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Roger Wicker (R- Miss.) — missed the vote.

Pryor, Cochran and Wicker were in their home states dealing with the response to deadly tornadoes. Boozman was home recovering from heart surgery. All four were expected to vote against advancing the bill.

Democrats expressed outrage at the bill’s failure. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it was evidence of the “Republican disregard for the working people of our nation,” while Labor Secretary Thomas Perez also quickly condemned the vote.

“Today, a minority of U.S. senators blocked a minimum wage increase that a strong majority of the American people supports,” Perez said in a statement. “In so doing, they have rejected a long bipartisan tradition of rewarding hard work with a fair wage.”

An Associated Press-GfK Poll in January found that while the public supports a minimum wage increase by 55 percent to 21 percent, Republicans oppose it by 39 percent to 32 percent. For tea party voters — who GOP senators hope will vote in large numbers this November — the gap is 43 percent against an increase and 28 percent for it.

The bill is part of the Democrats’ broader “Fair Shot for All” midterm campaign. Democrats are the party looking out for average Americans while Republicans are the party of special interests.

In addition to the minimum wage measure, the Democrats have pushed bills that would extend emergency unemployment insurance and address paycheck disparities between men and women, as well as a bipartisan manufacturing jobs bill.

“Americans have earned a raise!” Voters need to elect Democrats in November to give it to them. Make the Tea-Publicans pay for their morally depraved act. Remember in November!

UPDATE: Excellent point from Steve Benen: “[I]t’s worth remembering that what transpired on the Senate floor this afternoon wasn’t a vote on whether to raise the minimum wage; it was a vote on whether to end a Republican filibuster and begin a debate on raising the minimum wage. The GOP minority — including ‘moderates’ like Susan Collins and Mark Kirk — blocked wage increase, but in the process, they also rejected the World’s Most Deliberative Body from even debating the issue.”