华盛顿——在国会准备就民主党1.9万亿美元的新冠肺炎纾困法案进行首次投票之际，民主党领导人有一股强大的动力:有哪位民主党人敢投下破坏新总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)领先倡议的一票吗？
面对坚定的共和党反对派，民主党在众议院10票的微弱多数几乎没有叛逃的余地，而且他们在50票对50票的参议院中没有席位，他们只通过副总统贺锦丽的决定性投票来控制。民主党内部在提高最低工资、向苦苦挣扎的州和地方政府输送多少援助以及是否将紧急失业救济延长一个月等问题上仍存在争议。
然而，随着众议院预算委员会计划在周一批准这份591页的方案，该党各派民主党人几乎没有迹象表明，他们愿意在拜登就任总统一个月后高调落败，让拜登难堪。
这种挫折将对拜登和纽约民主党新任参议院多数党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)造成早期打击。它还可能危及2022年的反响，从而对国会民主党人造成整体伤害选举如果他们不能有效地团结起来对抗像流行病和经济冻结这样的明显敌人。
资深民主党顾问伊恩·拉塞尔(Ian Russell)表示:“在对自己政党的总统立法议程投决定性一票之前，你必须认真思考。”。但他警告说，立法者必须在国内“自己决定他们的投票将如何进行”。
引发最大分歧的问题是，主要由进步人士发起的在五年内将联邦最低工资提高到每小时15美元的运动。目前的最低7.25美元于2009年生效。
“这是进步人士的第一要务，”华盛顿众议员普拉米拉·贾亚帕尔说。美国国会进步核心小组的主席在上周的一次采访中说。“这是我们一直坚持的事情，也是我们向美国人民承诺的事情。”
包括提高最低工资在内的整体救助法案预计将获得众议院通过，参议院也可能通过。但是最低工资的提高在参议院的命运更加不稳定，西弗吉尼亚州的乔·曼钦，可能是众议院最保守的民主党人，说15美元的目标太贵了。
亚利桑那州参议员基尔斯顿·西内马(Kyrsten Sinema)表示，她可能也会反对。她说，民主党人不应该使用特殊的规则来推动它的通过，这些规则可以让他们避免共和党的阻挠，这需要难以实现的60票才能克服。
曼钦的办公室没有让他接受采访。本月早些时候，他告诉政治刊物《国会山》，每小时11美元是“负责任和合理的”
更不幸的是，参议院议员预计将很快决定是否必须将最低工资条款从法案中删除。根据民主党人正在使用的快速程序，不能包括主要与预算无关的项目，也不清楚民主党人是否有足够的票数推翻这样的决定。
然而，即使是在一个几乎需要所有民主党人投票的国会，也很少有人公开威胁要否决整个法案，除非他们如愿以偿。
参议院预算委员会主席伯尼·桑德斯。他的商会的最低工资的主要发起人，说民主党人必须“大胆行动”并且批准一个增加最低工资的方案。当被问及是否愿意妥协以将该计划保留在总账单中时，他间接回答道。
他在接受采访时说:“每个民主党人都明白，在这个历史时刻，在这个工人家庭遭受前所未有的痛苦和苦难的时刻，我们绝对有必要支持总统，我们要做美国人民想要的事情，我们要通过这个方案。”
温和派众议员布拉德·施耐德，伊利诺伊州。，也表明了对棘手要求的厌恶。由近100名温和的众议院民主党人组成的新民主党联盟的领导人施耐德说，成功的途径是“尽你所能努力获得你现在想要的，而不是妥协你的原则，并知道明天又是新的一天”。
共和党人表示，该提案价格过高，不是针对最需要帮助的人，不足以促使学校重新开放，是民主党忽视共和党的党派权力游戏。
该法案将向数百万中低收入人群一次性支付1400美元，增加可以提前每月支付的儿童税收抵免，并在8月份之前每周提供额外的400美元联邦失业福利。它还将为州和地方政府、关闭的学校、新冠肺炎疫苗和测试以及陷入困境的航空公司、餐馆和其他企业提供数千亿美元。
历史上有许多立法者面临着是否忠诚支持其政党总统优先事项的关键决定的例子，结果喜忧参半。
2017年，三次共和党倒戈——最著名的是现已去世的亚利桑那州参议员约翰·麦凯恩(John McCain)在午夜后的大拇指否决——挫败了时任总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)废除奥巴马时代《平价医疗法案》(平价医疗法案)的标志性努力。麦凯恩的投票引发了特朗普无尽的敌意。在另外两位参议员中，缅因州参议员苏珊·科林斯去年再次当选，阿拉斯加州参议员莉萨·穆尔科斯基将于2022年再次当选。
1993年，新总统比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)的5000亿美元赤字削减计划在众议院以一票之差获得通过，此前新任众议员Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky同意支持该计划。梅兹温斯基此前批评该措施缺乏足够的支出削减，在克林顿在投票期间在众议院衣帽间打电话寻求她的支持后，她投了赞成票。
“我告诉他我知道这有多重要，我不会让它过去，但我说我只会是决定性的一票，”她在本周的一次采访中回忆道。她说她还告诉他，“如果我把你拉到上面，你会失去这个座位。”
两个场景都演完了。
包裹以218票对216票通过，被她决定性的一票挽救了。这位立法者离婚后的姓氏现在是玛戈利斯，两年后失去了在费城郊区共和党占主导地位的地区的连任。
她再也没有回到国会。但是她的一个孩子马克·梅兹文斯基后来娶了希拉里的女儿切尔西。
Big factor in COVID votes: Would Dems sink first Biden goal?
WASHINGTON -- Democratic leaders have a potent dynamic on their side as Congress preps for its first votes on the party’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill: Would any Democrat dare cast the vote that scuttles new President Joe Biden’s leadoff initiative?
Democrats' wafer-thin 10-vote House majority leaves little room for defections in the face of solid Republican opposition, and they have none in a 50-50 Senate they control only with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Internal Democratic disputes remain over issues like raising the minimum wage, how much aid to funnel to struggling state and local governments and whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits for an extra month.
Yet with the House Budget Committee planning to approve the 591-page package Monday, Democrats across the party's spectrum show little indication they're willing to embarrass Biden with a high-profile defeat a month into his presidency.
Such a setback would deal early blows to both Biden and new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. It could also wound congressional Democrats overall by risking repercussions in the 2022 elections if they fail to unite effectively against clear enemies like the pandemic and the frozen economy.
“You think very seriously before casting a deciding vote against your own party's president's legislative agenda,” said Ian Russell, a longtime Democratic consultant. But he cautioned that lawmakers must decide “for themselves how their vote is going to play out" at home.
The issue that's provoked the deepest divisions is a drive, largely by progressives, to boost the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly over five years. The current $7.25 minimum took effect in 2009.
“It was the No. 1 priority for progressives,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview last week. “This is something we've run on and something we've promised to the American people.”
An overall relief bill, including the minimum wage boost, is expected to clear the House, and likely the Senate as well. But the minimum wage boost's fate is shakier in the Senate, where Joe Manchin of West Virginia, perhaps the chamber's most conservative Democrat, has said the $15 target is too expensive.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., has suggested she might oppose it, too. She said Democrats shouldn't whisk it to passage using special rules that would let them avoid a Republican filibuster, which would require an unattainable 60 votes to overcome.
Manchin's office did not make him available for an interview. Earlier this month he told The Hill, a political publication, that $11 hourly would be “responsible and reasonable.”
Even more ominously, the Senate parliamentarian is expected to rule soon on whether the minimum wage provision must be tossed from the bill. Under expedited procedures Democrats are using, items can't be included that aren't principally budget-related, and it's unclear if Democrats would have the votes to overturn such a decision.
Yet even in a Congress where virtually every Democratic vote is needed, few if any are overtly threatening to take the entire bill down unless they get their way.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., his chamber's chief minimum wage sponsor, said Democrats must “act boldly” and approve a package with the minimum wage increase. He answered indirectly when asked if he'd be willing to compromise to keep the plan in the overall bill.
“Every Democrat understands that at this moment in history, this unprecedented moment of pain and suffering for working families, it is absolutely imperative we support the president, that we do what the American people want and we pass that package,” he said in an interview.
Moderate Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., also signaled a distaste for intractable demands. The pathway to success is to “push as hard as you can to get as much as you can now that you want, not compromise your principles and know that tomorrow’s another day,” said Schneider, a leader of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of nearly 100 moderate House Democrats.
Republicans say the proposal is overpriced, not targeted to people who most need help, insufficiently prods schools to reopen and is a partisan Democratic power play to ignore the GOP.
The bill would provide one-time $1,400 payments to millions of low- and middle-income people, increase child tax credits that could be paid in advance and monthly and provide extra $400 weekly federal unemployment benefits through August. It would also provide hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments, shuttered schools, COVID-19 vaccines and testing and struggling airlines, restaurants and other businesses.
History has rich examples of lawmakers who’ve faced pivotal decisions on whether to loyally back priorities of their parties’ presidents, with mixed results.
In 2017, three GOP defections — most famously a post-midnight thumbs-down by the now deceased Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — brought down then-President Donald Trump’s trademark effort to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. McCain’s vote sparked unending enmity from Trump. Of the other two, Maine Sen. Susan Collins was reelected last year and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces reelection in 2022.
In 1993, new President Bill Clinton’s $500 billion deficit-reduction plan passed the House by a single vote after freshman Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky agreed to support it. Mezvinsky, who’d previously criticized the measure as lacking sufficient spending cuts, voted “yes” after Clinton sought her backing in a phone call she took in the House cloakroom during the vote.
“I told him I knew how important it was and I wouldn’t let it go down, but I said I would only be the tie-breaking vote,” she recalled this week in an interview. She said she also told him, “If I pull you over the top, you’ll lose this seat.”
Both scenarios played out.
The package passed 218-216, saved by her decisive vote. And the lawmaker, whose last name is now Margolies following divorce, lost her reelection two years later from what was a heavily GOP district in Philadelphia’s suburbs.
She never returned to Congress. But one of her children, Marc Mezvinsky, later married Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea.
