LogFAQs > #975076254

FWIW, with the exception of that brief period from July 2009 - January 2010, the Dems have not had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Which has largely been the sticking point.

Even in the last minimum wage increase from 2007, when Dems passed a clean raise - it got filibustered by the GOP and opposed by Bush, and they refused to pass anything unless they got a bunch of tax cuts for businesses... which the Dems eventually gave them so they could pass it.

And so, starting from 2009 when the 2007 bill finished raising it, you had that brief 8 month period where they could have done more.

Then:

2010-2018: GOP had the House
2018-2020: Dems win back the House, but lost the Senate outright (since 2014).
2020-2022: Okay, now we've got something here... only it's a nominal trifecta where the Dems Senate control (forget the filibuster lmao) hinges on Manchin and Sinema
2022-: lost the house again

Now, granted, I do think the 2018-2022 House should have, somewhere along the line actually passed the minimum wage increase. It had over 200 cosponsors but never came up for a vote. Now it would have died in the Senate regardless of whether it was brought up in 2019-2020 or 2021-2022 either from McConnell just never bringing it up in the former, or him filibustering it in the latter but it would have been something. The only real excuse you can give for the 2021-2022 Congress is we were still in pandemic crisis mode so that took all the political capital in passing all the relief. This would have all been show votes though and not actually materially helped anyone though so it wouldn't change the fact that the minimum wage is the same now as it was in 2009. I think it'd be worth doing regardless but let's not pretend it would have changed anything.

but to answer the question of does it make it less funny? yeah it kinda does, because the reduction of the federal government to just looking at who is the president and acting like they're a king who is the sole decider of what does and doesn't get done during their term is part of the civic education rot that has allowed an obstructionist congress to get away with its bullshit for decades now