Why Biden is keeping Bernie close

As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fought to include a minimum wage increase inside Democrats’ coronavirus relief package, he made sure to keep the White House in the loop.

And as the administration prepared a video of President Joe Biden backing an effort by Amazon workers to unionize in Alabama, the White House made sure members of Sanders’ team knew about it too.

The collaboration has paid off. In the hours after the video’s release, Bernie World heaped praise on Biden. And as Sanders explored different options for getting a minimum wage hike into the final bill — only for his Plan B to fall apart on Sunday — there was no massive blow up or notable friction between the senator’s office and the White House.

“Those are good productive conversations, quite frankly, between [Sanders] and [White House Chief of Staff] Ron Klain,” said Faiz Shakir, a political adviser to Sanders. From raising the wage floor to Amazon unionization efforts, “the relationship has generally been one of respect,” Shakir added. “We have felt an open door where, if we have something that might be good policy and politics for them, we’re going to raise it and they’re going to entertain it in a serious way.”

The state of the Bernie-Biden relationship remains strong, even under stressful circumstances. With Democrats navigating battles over labor rights and wage policy, the two have back-channeled, applauded each other, and crafted carefully worded statements designed to project peace and the aura of collaboration. It is, in part, a recognition that each side needs the other in order to be successful. It’s also driven by a desire to avoid the problems of the past.

The Vermont independent spent a good portion of the Obama years as a progressive-minded critic of the Democratic Party and its agenda, even as he cast critical votes to pass those policies. The reputation catapulted him onto the national stage, though it came back to bite him in the party’s presidential primary and ultimately wasn’t enough to deliver him the nomination. Colleagues say Sanders, who chairs the Budget Committee, is demonstrating now that he can operate constructively in the Senate and with a Democrat in the White House.

“Bernie has been a movement builder for a long time, and the unfair critique of him is that he didn't know how to operate within the Congress itself as effectively,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “He's put to rest this idea that he's only an outside player.”

Biden never aired that criticism himself. But he certainly was aware of Sanders’ history, having had to work the Senate for votes on some of the very Obama-era deals that Sanders chastised. Fearing a redux, he’s worked hard to make sure that Sanders feels and is included — from joining forces during the general election, to crafting the Democratic platform, to placing former Sanders’ staffers throughout the administration.

The relationship between the two has benefited a shared political identity—each man bases his political appeal around emphasizing so-called working-class issues. They also had a closer working partnership than Sanders did with 2016 primary rival Hillary Clinton.

“There's a partnership there and also Biden recognizes the value in that, the value of being pushed,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. "I got to see up close and personal really the alignment between president Biden and Bernie Sanders on the unity task force and frankly, the labor platform was aligned almost entirely."

Biden’s promise to make $15 an hour a reality during the campaign was viewed by progressives as a bridge to their wing of the party and a move that distinguished him from the previous Democratic nominee.

That minimum wage promise, and the subsequent fight for it, is now the first real test of whether all that relationship manicuring worked. When Sanders and his Senate colleagues pushed a proposal to penalize mega-corporations who didn’t pay $15 an hour to its workers, the White House gave them space. On Monday, Sanders said he would offer another amendment to raise the wage to $15 an hour in an attempt — however doomed — to effectively bypass the parliamentarian as the Senate begins moving the relief bill through reconciliation. The White House, once again, was given a heads up.

But the heads up may soon not be enough. Biden’s commitment to pass major Democratic policy priorities with narrow majorities — like the $15 wage hike, voting rights protections and immigration reform — and his resistance to abolishing the legislative filibuster may very well put him on a collision course with Sanders and other liberals in Congress.

Though many lawmakers who spoke to POLITICO said they believe Biden is firmly committed to those ideas, some Democrats admitted they were disappointed the president had cast doubt on the minimum wage’s fate in the weeks before the parliamentarian’s ruling that the hike could not be included in the Covid relief bill. While some Democrats said Biden had zero impact on the decision by the nonpartisan rules referee, two Democratic aides said his comments casting doubt on the wage hike’s survival created a “permission structure” for the parliamentarian to rule against including the $15 an hour increase.

“There's a role for the Biden administration to go to the mat for a $15 minimum wage and any steps that raise the minimum wage,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in an interview. “Because this is going to reflect on the White House and the White House's ability to deliver on anything if we lose the Senate majority in two years, if we lose the House majority in two years.”

Jayapal said Biden’s statements were “confusing.” With the expectation that a clean $15 wage is unlikely to be in the final package, the congresswoman wants the president to “promise that it's gonna pass through filibuster reform because I just don't see any way that there's going to be 60 votes for this.”

The White House has given no indication it is willing to go that route. Sanders told POLITICO on Monday that Democrats should not just "ignore" the parliamentarian's decision but "move as rapidly as possible to end the filibuster."

Even with his relentless pushing for a hiking of the minimum wage, Sanders has so far limited his criticism of Biden to his foreign policy, not his domestic actions. For months the senator has lent support to the effort by Amazon warehouse workers to organize in Alabama and recently cut digital ads urging unionization. On Monday, Sanders thanked Biden for speaking out on the issue in a tweet.

But how long that goodwill lasts depends on the battles to come, progressives said. Sanders is working down to the wire to find some way to get a wage increase as close as possible to $15-an-hour into the relief package, a Senate aide said. But if this month’s Covid relief bill doesn’t include a minimum wage hike, it will lead to questions about when that hike may come and could strain Biden’s relationship with the left.

Progressive lawmakers and activists don’t see a wage hike happening without the elimination of the filibuster, which sets a 60-vote threshold to move most legislation through the Senate.

A fight over the filibuster seems practically “inevitable,” said Schatz. Though it appears the $15 wage increase is nowhere near passing anytime soon, he said the battle has helped the public understand the Senate’s inner workings.

“Democracy reforms benefit from people understanding how these arcane rules are hurting them in their lives,” said Schatz. “Not just as some sort of abstract process complaint, but of real harm to regular people who are trying to try to make it economically.”

Marianne LeVine contributed reporting.