Frist slips 'poison pill' to minimum wage bill

Posted by Bob Geiger at 10:40 AM on June 21, 2006.

It was so much easier for Senate Republicans to kill both attempts by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to raise the minimum wage last year with no midterm elections looming right around the corner. With nothing more than their routine disregard for the poor as an excuse, the GOP leadership killed two bills offered by Kennedy in 2005 to raise a federal minimum wage that has remained the same for almost a decade.

This year it's tougher, because Republican Senators up for reelection may have to explain screwing working Americans in a more recent vote while, at the same time, managing to give themselves nine pay raises, totaling almost $32,000, in the same ten-year span.

So Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has found a new way to pull his Simon Legree act and this time it takes the form of attaching a "poison pill" amendment to Kennedy's S.AMDT.4322, which would gradually raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next two years.

A poison-pill is a procedural maneuver in which an onerous amendment is attached to a bill under consideration to force proponents of the original legislation to bail out and drop the whole issue. It's designed to either kill a bill entirely or create a situation that forces the other side into a negotiation to water down their original legislation to an unrecognizable point.

And the best way for a Religious Right go-to guy like Frist to do that -- and to poke a sharp stick in the eye of Senate Democrats -- is to attach an anti-abortion bill, that must be voted on before the minimum wage measure. Frist's S.AMDT.4323 would criminalize the transport of a minor across state lines to get an abortion and Democrats have to contend with that before they can get to the minimum wage issue.

Frist's intent is clear: To force red-state Democrats to vote "yea" on an anti-abortion bill -- or face the wrath of their conservative constituents this year -- which, if it passes, would then force all Democrats to vote against the minimum wage to nullify the anti-abortion part.

Have a headache yet? It's a disgusting thing to behold and another low for Republicans as they show they will stop at nothing to hold down wages on the people struggling most in our country.

"Too many hard-working people are living on the edge--just one serious illness, one pink slip away from bankruptcy," said Kennedy in arguing for his bill on the Senate floor. "For minimum wage workers, the American dream is even further from reality. Minimum wage workers are men and women of dignity. They care for their children and for young children in daycare centers. They care for senior citizens in nursing homes. They check out groceries in the supermarket. They clean our office buildings. But the minimum wage they receive no longer covers their bills. A minimum wage worker who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earns just $10,700. That is almost $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three."

The fact that at least 5.4 million more Americans, including one million children, have fallen into poverty since George W. Bush took office in 2000 seems to have no impact on Frist.

"We have agreed to set aside amendments so that the Senator from Massachusetts can offer an amendment on the minimum wage, and I second-degreed that amendment with a child custody protection amendment," said Frist. "Our discussions have led to the understanding that after we figure out how we are going to address both the minimum wage and child custody protection over the course of this afternoon or tonight or tomorrow, we will get around to having a vote on the minimum wage issue."

And, based on those ground rules, there's a very good chance that Kennedy and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will decide to drop this incarnation of a minimum wage increase and fight that battle at a later date.

I would ask how Frist sleeps at night but, as a Republican, I'm sure he sleeps just fine.

Update (06/21/06 1:30 PM EDT): The Frist anti-abortion amendment to Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) attempt to raise the minimum wage has been withdrawn and Kennedy's bill, along with a faux bill to hike the wage rate by Mike Enzi (R-WY) have both been rejected. The Senate web site is reporting these votes somewhat inaccurately right now and I will post later on what really happened. Bottom line in that a minimum wage increase has at least temporarily been defeated.

Bob Geiger is a writer, activist and Democratic District Leader in Westchester County, NY. You can reach Bob at geiger.bob@gmail.com and read more from him at Democrats.com.