A friend sent an account from Politics in Minnesota of the "long count," wherein Bakk kept the board open to make sure the indexed wage hike for Seantors passed. Charley Shaw wrote in Senate narrowly passes legislator pay increase;
A state government omnibus finance bill containing a pay increase for legislators squeaked by the state Senate on Tuesday afternoon. The bill passed 34-32, with five DFLers and all Republicans voting against the bill in a roll-call vote that lasted several minutes. . . .
The House doesn’t face the same political calendar as the Senate, however. They will stand for election in November 2014. Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, got a dig in at the Senate following the vote when he tweeted: “So the senate officially voted to raise its own pay before voting to raise the minimum wage. ‘Leadership.’”
The pay increase wasn’t the subject of debate on the floor, and no DFL senators stood to tell their colleagues they would dissent. But Bakk recessed during the session and pulled his caucus into a 45-minute closed-door meeting to discuss the pay issue. Final passage was an intriguing couple of minutes in which the bill appeared to be at risk of failing.
But could Bakk use his authority as Majority Leader to whip the Senate to index a higher minimum wage to inflation? Perish the thought.
Image: It's that easy!
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