“Today’s vote on Senator Sanders’ $15 minimum wage amendment is incredibly sad. $15 per hour is the bare minimum anyone in this country needs to survive, and it is baffling that any member of the US Senate, much less a number of Democrats, could look at the crisis this country is enduring and decide that tens of millions of low-income workers, including millions of frontline workers who put their lives on the line every day in the midst of a global pandemic, should not get a raise.

The Senate failed the American people today. Every single Republican Senator who voted against $15 today failed their constituents. The Democrats who voted against $15 today not only failed their constituents, the decision they made – to put some ancient senate tradition ahead of the priorities that they ran on and that they stand for – was wrong economically, morally, and politically.

There is no excuse. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Senator Jon Tester, Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Chris Coons, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Tom Carper, Senator Maggie Hassan, and Senator Angus King failed both their people and their party. Neither those voting next year nor those reading the history of the next generation will appreciate those senators who could have changed the course of history – but chose not to.”