So, you are a political junkie, but you have no idea about obscure parliamentary tricks of the House? Never fear. Today, the Republicans pulled out a motion to instruct in order to provide some cover for their endangered Northeastern and Upper Midwestern congresspersons.
A group of 25 moderate House Republicans — most of them affiliated with the Northeast/Midwest-heavy GOP labor caucus — have penned a letter to Maj Leader John Boehner seeking a vote to increase the minimum wage before the August recess.
Boehner has no intention of raising the minimum wage, so he pulled a neat little trick. Here’s (.pdf) a description of the ‘motion to instruct’.
Instruct Conferees. The result of a motion to instruct conferees is a formal vote of the House to tell its conference committee members how they should resolve an issue. Under House precedents, the right to offer a motion to instruct conferees is the prerogative of the minority. There are three situations where such a motion may be offered: 1) after the House decides to go to conference but before House conferees are named (only one such motion is in order); 2) 20 calendar days and 10 legislative days after conferees have been named if a conference report has not been filed; and 3) as a part of a motion to recommit a conference report with instructions.
This last opportunity does not exist if the Senate has already acted on the conference report. Motions to instruct conferees are not binding. There is no point of order against a conference report that does not follow a House-passed motion to instruct.
Motions to instruct are debated under the hour rule. A Member would say: Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
Bada Bing.
By a margin of 260-159, the House this afternoon passed a non-binding “motion to instruct” procedure in support of upping the minimum wage to $7.25 per-hour. Though symbolic, the vote allows the vulnerable GOPers to point to an actual vote matching their promises. All the endangered GOPers on the letter voted ‘yea,’…
This is, of course, total horseshit. If the blogosphere is good for anything, it is good for sniffing out horseshit. Don’t let anyone tell you that these ‘moderate’ Republicans just voted to increase the minimum wage. They got a free vote that has no consequences…that will not persuade the House conferees to do shit, because the dumb vote IS NOT BINDING.
This is a version of “I voted for the minimum wage before I refused to allow it to be voted on at all.”
is failing the people and the states are starting to realize that wrt living wage policies they are going to have to take things into their own hands.
My congressman, Raul Grijalva, is working with John Edwards on this course of action for Az. Edwards has been a busy bee traveling all over the country advocating for similar actions.
It’s about time someone prominent does it and I know I won’t forget it anytime soon.
(thanks for the skinny on the procedures, that stuff usually goes over my head but you explained it well enough for me to feel confident enough to do the same)
Interesting, thank you.
Were the “yea” voters affected by state minimum wage increases? Voting against a rate increase seems meaningless in states where the federal rate is matched or surpassed.
Yea voters from:
CT (Shays, Johnson, Simmons) rate increased to $7.65 next January.
PA (Weldon, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach)up to $7.15 next July.
NY (Sweeney, Walsh)up to $7.15 next January.
OH (Ney) $5.15 (non-tipped employees)
Other recent increases are in MI, MD (Republican governor’s veto overrridden), RI, AR, and WI, with a flawed increase in WV.
Voting against the motion to instruct:
IN (Sodrel) $5.15; rate increase defeated 2006
NC (Taylor) likely increase to $6.15
VA (Drake) $5.15; rate increase defeated 2006
WA (Reichert) $7.63 with COLA
AZ (Hayworth) no minimum wage rate
The DOL chart of state minimum wage rates is here. Until recently, most states had the current Federal rate, $5.15. Coalition campaigns will have rate increase initiatives on many state ballots in the Fall. Among them: AZ ($6.75 with COLA), MO ($6.50 with COLA), MT ($6.15 or Federal, whichever is greater), OH ($6.85), CO ($6.85), and NV ($6.15).
Rep. George Miller introduced the measure in the House to increase the Federal rate to $7.25 over the next two years. He urges members to sign the discharge petition to force a floor vote. This effectively gauges a Representative’s true vote, compared to the motion to instruct. The petition needs 218 signatures. As of July 11, 2006, the petition had 191 signatures, #191 that of Rep. Christopher Shays (CT).
The remaining representatives listed above from CT, PA, and OH, are still searching around for a pen.