It Ain't Over Til It's Over

Yogi Berra probably wasn't referring to New York City elections when he said that, but he might as well have been. The voters have now spoken, but it will take quite a while to figure out what they said.

Before we get to the "results," such as they are, let's explain why it will take so long for the final tally to be known. New York City, of course, is run by a bunch of mamby-pamby, granola-eating, sandal-wearing, EV-driving, bleeding-heart, probable-Commie liberals. They have this crazy idea that if someone wants to vote, that vote should actually be counted. Strange, right? Anyhow, consistent with this, election officials will accept any absentee ballot postmarked by yesterday, as long as it's received by June 29. Then, there are another 10 days allotted for people to "cure" any absentee ballots that need to be cured. If this were a first-past-the-post election, then the result might be evident right now, or at least by next week. But given the ranked-choice voting (RCV) system, certainty is improbable—at least, in a 13-way race—until every ballot has been received and properly processed.

The city has released first-choice results for most of the early absentee ballots and for in-person ballots already. Next Tuesday (June 29), they will release a preliminary ranked-choice result. Then, they will keep issuing updates on Tuesdays (July 6, July 13) until the final result is in. They are anticipating that will happen sometime during the week of July 12, so that Tuesday, July 13 update could well be the final tally.

And now, the first-choice results, with 84% of precincts reported:

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Eric Adams	253,234	31.7%
Maya Wiley	177,722	22.3%
Kathryn Garcia	155,812	19.5%
Andrew Yang	93,291	11.7%
Scott Stringer	40,244	5.0%
Dianne Morales	22,221	2.8%
Raymond McGuire	18,503	2.3%
Shaun Donovan	17,303	2.2%
Aaron Foldenauer	6,755	0.8%
Art Chang	5,862	0.7%
Paperboy Prince	3,432	0.4%
Joycelyn Taylor	2,199	0.3%
Isaac Wright	1,913	0.2%

The only (reasonably) certain thing is that Andrew Yang is out of luck (as are all of the candidates who finished below him, of course). The former presidential candidate underperformed his polls, and there is no plausible way he can come back from a hole this deep. Does he still have a future in politics, if he wants it? He's taken a shot at national executive office, and one at municipal executive office, and come up short both times. He has zero chance of winning the New York governor's mansion, so statewide executive office is out. That means he would need to change course and consider something on the legislative side of things. Presumably the local/state legislatures are too small potatoes for someone who looks in the mirror and sees a future president, and New York's U.S. Senate seats are pretty well locked up for the foreseeable future, and even if that changes, the waiting line is very long. That means that it's presumably the House of Representatives or bust for Yang. He would have to find just the right kind of district to run in, though, as he's neither conventionally progressive nor conventionally centrist. Also, even if he found a suitable district, bought a house there, and filed to run a few months later, he would be attacked as a carpetbagger.

Beyond that, Eric Adams is obviously in the catbird seat, as the polls predicted he would be. However, both Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia say they think they have a path forward, and they are right. It is ultimately going to come down to two questions:

1. The Outstanding Absentee Ballots: Thus far, 798,491 ballots have been counted. Though our staff mathematician is swamped by so many big numbers, as is always the case on days that end in "-y," this calculation is one that even a historian can handle. If that represents 84% of the early-absentee/in-person total, that means that we're talking about roughly 950,000 ballots. We don't know how many outstanding absentee ballots there are, but we do know that 1.6 million people re-registered (from Republican, third party, or independent to Democrat) specifically to participate in this election. So, there must be some sizable chunk of ballots still in the mail.
   
   The late-absentee ballots won't change the calculus if they are, to a greater or lesser extent, basically the same as the in-person/early-absentee ballots. But they could very well be different. In last year's presidential election, the absentee ballots, and in particular the later-arriving absentee ballots, skewed Democratic (a.k.a., leftier than the general populace). In a situation where all the ballots are Democratic anyhow, could that plausibly mean that the absentee ballots, and in particular the later-arriving absentee ballots, skew progressive (a.k.a., leftier than the average Democrat)? It's certainly possible. Of course, it could also skew the other way if it's predominantly older folks and wealthier folks who are primarily taking advantage of vote-by-mail.
   
   
2. Favored Alternatives: Nobody knows, right now, how large the "anyone but Adams" vote was, or if it coalesced around Wiley and/or Garcia. For one of them to overtake Adams, they would presumably need to lay claim to most of the other one's votes. And that means, in our view, that Garcia is the much bigger threat to come from behind. Wiley is the leading progressive candidate, and if her voters cannot put her in office, it is probable they would overwhelmingly prefer Garcia to Adams or Yang. Garcia, on the other hand, is basically a centrist, and so her voters are likely to split more evenly if she is eliminated, with some of them heading to a more progressive candidate (Wiley) and some of them heading to a less progressive one (Adams). So, Wiley voters could give a big boost to Garcia, but Garcia voters are not likely to give a big boost to Wiley. Plus, Yang asked his voters to put Garcia second, so she figures to lay claim to a disproportionate share of his votes.
   
   Of course, we are not on the ground in New York City. We do like "person on the street" reports, and we got one from frequent mailbag contributor D.A. in Brooklyn. Here is how D.A. has it:

   There are clearly at most 3 viable candidates: Adams, Wiley, and Garcia. What counts is where the voters for the other candidates end up. The following is a crude but, to this Brooklynite-since-1973, pretty likely scenario: Yang's voters split roughly 3-to-1 for Garcia over Adams, with a smattering heading to Wiley. The losing progressives (Scott Stringer, Dianne Morales, Shaun Donovan) split roughly 4-to-1, with most votes going to Wiley and the rest to Garcia. Raymond McGuire's voters go mostly for Adams.
   
   That would leave Adams at 35-36% and Wiley and Garcia both around 30-31%. But one of them will beat the other. And the loser's voters will predominantly go against Adams. If Wiley loses, almost all her voters will go for Garcia, in which case Garcia wins with 60% of the vote—a landslide. If Garcia loses, probably a bit more than half of her voters go to Wiley, and Wiley wins 52% or so of the vote—a narrow victory. So the next mayor will be Garcia or Wiley.

   With such a new system, nobody can really be an "expert" in what comes next. But nearly 50 years of following New York City politics ain't nothing to sneeze at, either.

As you can presumably guess, very few of the lesser races were decided last night. A few city council nominees (back in the good days, they called them "aldermen") are known, and Jumaane Williams (D) has now effectively won a full term as the city's public advocate (he previously won a special election to replace Letitia James when she was elected AG of New York). In the Manhattan D.A. contest, a.k.a. the race to be the one to prosecute Donald Trump, law professor and former state prosecutor Alvin Bragg has a slight lead (33.9% to 30.5%) on former federal prosecutor Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who has spent millions of her own money on the race. Obviously, that one is still up for grabs.

There's going to be quite a lot of anxiety in the next few weeks, thanks to the extended timetable. There are many activists out there who would like to see RCV adopted nationwide, including for presidential elections. If that comes to pass, then Democrats are either going to have to abandon their general preference for liberal ballot/curing deadlines, or else the country is going to have to get used to waiting until December to learn who the next president (and senator, and representative, etc.) will be. (Z)

Pelosi Reportedly Ready to Move Forward with 1/6 Commission

There is zero chance that the Democrats in Congress are going to allow the 1/6 insurrection, and specifically Donald Trump's role therein, go un-investigated. The FBI is not pursuing that angle, the White House already punted, and it's clear that the votes aren't there in the Senate for a joint commission. And so, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has apparently decided to get to work on the creation of a House select commission.

After CNN reported that, Pelosi's office put out a statement saying that she has not actually decided, although she will make an announcement this week, one way or the other. However, as we already said, there is no way that the Democrats are just going to drop this. And CNN talked to people who were in the room when the decision was made. It is also improbable that multiple folks would leak this news without go-ahead. So, it sure looks like Senate Republicans are tacitly being given one last chance to get on board (which they won't take), and then Pelosi is going to make things official tomorrow or Friday.

An interesting question is whether the committee Pelosi creates will have subpoena power and if so, how it will use it. Suppose it subpoenas, say, a former president, and said former president refuses to show up. Then what? That court fight could take years to get to the Supreme Court. Will the committee be willing to wait years, even if it thinks it will win in the end? And suppose it does win and aforesaid president still refuses to show up. What then? Will federal marshals be sent to arrest the target of the subpoena and bring him to the House to testify, possibly in the middle of a presidential race in which he is a candidate? It could get messy. (Z)

Manchin Plays Ball

After weeks of playing coy, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) finally decided to play ball instead. He and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a deal wherein Manchin would vote to open debate on the Democrats' voting rights bill, H.R. 1, and, in exchange, Manchin would be given an opportunity to offer his own voting-rights bill as the first amendment to H.R. 1. What he wants is different (and weaker) than what the rest of the Party wants, but it is good enough that many key Democrats would be willing to go with his version for now.

Getting all the Democrats on board is one thing. Passing the bill is something else. All of this became a moot point, as Schumer and Manchin presumably knew it would, when every Senate Republican voted against beginning debate on the bill. They also uttered the magic word: "Filibuster," which killed the bill in its tracks, even though President of the Senate Kamala Harris was there to break any ties, if needed. It should be noted that the Republican position isn't "We don't like this bill as written," it is "We don't want to even debate a voting-rights bill," whether the aggressive one passed by the House, or the much weaker one that Manchin would have introduced as an amendment (but never got to). In other words, it isn't that they have amendments they want. They simply do not want Congress interfering with the restrictive laws many states have passed, even though Congress' authority to override state election laws is specifically granted by the Constitution. Art. I, Sec. 4 reads:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The argument that it is states' job to write election laws is completely bogus. So what are the Democrats going to do? They know if the bill dies completely, Republicans are going to get a boost from the new state laws in 2022, 2024, and beyond, and Democrats may not return to power for a decade or more, until demographic change kicks in (English translation: until many older Republican voters die and are replaced by young Democrats).

Here are some potential strategies:

• Lobby Manchin and Sinema: Democrats can try to get Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to agree to reform the filibuster. There are many variants here. One is to make the filibusterers actually stand and talk day and night until they collapse. Another is to force 41 senators who want to sustain a filibuster to be present day and night for an unending series of quorum calls. Neither of these methods will increase the civility of the Senate, but they might work. Since Manchin is the only Democrat who can win in West Virginia, the approach to getting his vote has to be all carrot and no stick. No amount of pork is too much. Chairmanship of any committees he wants to chair is fine. Whatever Joe wants, Joe gets. So far that hasn't worked, though. Sinema is different. There are several Arizona Democrats who could beat her in a primary and go on to win the general election, so both carrots and sticks could work with her.
  
  
• Try bipartisanship: Joe Biden could very publicly ask Manchin to get together with the Republicans and work out a bipartisan bill. It has to be extremely public and look like they are serious. Then, when Manchin fails, he will have egg all over his face and Biden can say to him: "You tried. You did your best. Do you now see that bipartisanship simply doesn't work with Team McConnell?" Manchin would have a hard time defending bipartisanship after a very public failure, and that might finally give him the cover he needs to reform the filibuster.
  
  
• Shame the Republicans: Schumer is planning to bring up a series of popular bills and force the Republicans to filibuster them all. Maybe some Republicans will be embarrassed at constantly voting to kill bills that actually help the country (such as fixing broken roads). Maybe not. Maybe they will hear from their constituents who don't like driving on broken roads.
  
  
• Public pressure: If options 1 and 2 and 3 all fail, Democrats will certainly start a massive advertising campaign to convince the public that the filibuster has to go. This would entail talking about popular measures that Republicans oppose, including infrastructure, but using shorter words, like "fix the roads." If enough public pressure builds, it is possible that some Republican senators might feel it and flip, at least on a few bills. It is also possible that if Manchin and Sinema see polls saying that 70% of the voters in their own states want the filibuster to go the way of the dodo, they may feel they have the necessary cover to at least "modernize" it—a 21st century filibuster, if you will.
  
  
• Use the bully pulpit: If Joe Biden were to make downloading and installing filibuster v2.0 his main goal for the whole summer, he would get a lot of attention. There is no platform that can match the presidency. He has a lot of political capital left and he could decide to spend it all now. He could argue something like this: "If senators want to debate a bill, I believe they have the right to explain their position in as much detail and for as long as they want to. Don't you support their right to describe why they like or don't like a bill until they have made their case?" Probably many people will agree, without realizing that they are endorsing a return of the "talking filibuster." If Biden makes the case that he is defending the right of senators to talk as long as they want to, a lot of voters are likely to agree and tell that to the senators and pollsters. It is a bit tricky, but by phrasing it as if senators are now prohibited from talking as long as they want to and this change will free them, it could build up enough pressure to make Jimmy Stewart smile from wherever he is now. Maybe hanging out with Clarence Odbody.
  

The Democrats face long odds here, as Republicans believe that passing H.R. 1 is an existential threat to the Party, and are likely to resist it with all they have. So the blue team's only real hope is to provide enough carrots and sticks to get Manchin and Sinema to change their minds. Biden and Harris could go to Arizona to hold rallies to encourage voters to pressure Sinema, but they can't go to West Virginia to do that because they are both toxic there. So, in the end, everything comes down to Manchin. (V)

Democratic Super PAC Will Pour $20 Million into Voting Efforts

Democrats aren't just sitting around hoping that Joe Manchin suddenly gets an epiphany and decides he hates the filibuster after all. And they certainly aren't waiting for Arizona and Georgia to switch to all mail-in voting, like Nevada (see below). Instead, one of the biggest Democratic super PACs, Priorities USA, is planning to spend at least $20 million in an attempt to counter the new restrictive voting laws.

A key part of their effort will be to educate voters about the new laws. If voters know what is in all the new laws, they will be better prepared. For example, if specific kinds of voter ID are allowed for voting and voters know what they are, they will know what to bring to the polling place. If early voting days will be different in the future than in the past and voters are aware of this in advance, they can plan to vote when the polls are open.

Another part of the plan is helping individual voters. For example, Priorities USA is planning to send voters text messages alerting them that this is the time to request an absentee ballot and telling them who is eligible.

Another item on their agenda is lawsuits. They will try to fight the new laws in court. However, most of these cases are going to end up in the Supreme Court and the Roberts Court has not been terribly friendly to voting rights lawsuits ever since it shot down key portions of the Voting Rights Act. Still, there is a small chance one or two of these might win. (V)

Some States Are Making Voting Easier

We have had endless stories on how some states are making voting harder. It is not 100% bad news, though. Some states are taking a lesson from the pandemic and making voting easier. These aren't the big competitive states, unfortunately, but every time any state makes voting easier, that moves "easy voting" closer to the norm. It could also influence people in adjacent states to do what their neighbors are doing.

The best news comes out of Nevada, a swingish state that mailed ballots to all registered voters during the pandemic. It has decided to make that permanent, as Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Hawaii have done for years. The other state that is also switching to all-mail elections is Vermont. Vermont is not exactly a swing state, but it is next door to one, and people there might get jealous of their neighbor to the west and demand the same option once it goes into effect.

One other state that is going to make voting easier is...Kentucky. Surprise! It doesn't go nearly as far as Nevada and Vermont, but it does make voting a little easier. It adds 3 days of early voting to the calendar. It also allows counties to create voting centers, where any registered voter in the county can go, instead of restricting each voter to a single precinct. Absentee voting is allowed, but only if the voter has a good excuse. Still, making voting slightly easier is a lot better than making it much harder. And with 3 days of early voting, even a turtle is sure to make it to their polling place on time.

One state that hasn't gone all-mail yet, but where it is under consideration, is California. If the Golden State joins Washington, Oregon, and Nevada, a substantial chunk of the West will vote by mail, making it harder for Republicans elsewhere to come up with a plausible answer to the question: "If mail-in voting works all over the West, why can't it work here?" The real answer is: "If everybody can vote, we think Democrats will win all the elections and we don't want that," but that is the quiet part that they are not supposed to say out loud.

Some states in the Northeast are also working on improving access to voting. New Yorkers will get to vote on a constitutional amendment that will allow for no-excuse absentee voting. Connecticut is working on a similar amendment, but it isn't hasn't progressed much yet. Massachusetts is also working on that and Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) is in favor of it. If 15 or 20 states start allowing everyone to vote by mail and most voters choose to do so, at some point the tipping point will be reached and it will be difficult for the remaining states to refuse. Even in many red states, voters can force the legislature's hand through ballot initiatives. Once half the country is voting by mail, it will be increasingly difficult for Republican politicians to block it in the remaining states. (V)

Democrats Vow to Reach Out to Minority Voters

Democrats got some unpleasant surprises in the 2020 election. One of the least expected ones was a significant dropoff in the minority vote. Democrats had simply assumed that minorities would always vote for them as a bloc without even bothering to ask them. Turns out taking them all for granted wasn't such a great idea. Now the Democrats are aware of the problem and understand that unless it is corrected, it could cost the Democrats big time in the midterms. Lanae Erickson of the center-left think tank "Third Way" summarized the problem by saying that campaigns are trained to think: "If it's a white person you need to persuade them. And if they're a person of color, they vote for us." That has to change.

Third Way and two other groups produced a 73-page autopsy report on the 2020 election. One of the conclusions was that Democrats need to do much more to reach out to Black, Latino, and Asian-American voters. But some Democratic operatives said that the movement of working-class minority voters is due to larger forces that are not easily overcome by changing campaign tactics a bit. Guy Cecil, chair of Priorities USA, said that he wanted reach out to Black men, many of whom were surprisingly receptive to Donald Trump, but he wasn't able to raise more than 15% of the budget required for the project. Cecil: "I can tell you, of all the programs we ran, it was the single hardest program to get funded." The problem was that the focus was on white suburbanites and the turnout operation.

Another problem is that Democrats tend to see minorities as monolithic blocs and not as individuals with a variety of different issues. Democrats know that among white voters, some voters care most about the environment, others care most about gun control, still others put health care first, while others are most moved by the economy and jobs. They make specific pitches to all these groups separately. With minorities, it is more: "You are a minority so you should vote for us."

A related issue is that the people running the campaigns are mostly white. They have their own ideas what the minority voters want, but these are frequently not what the minority voters themselves prioritize. The solution has to be having more minority leadership in the top of the campaigns. Now that the Democrats are much more aware of the problems, the test will come if and when they try to solve them. (V)

Senate Committee Takes Up D.C. Statehood

Yesterday, the Senate Homeland Security Committee took up the issue of statehood for D.C. This is only the second time the issue has been debated in Congress. Many arguments were given for and against statehood. For example, D.C. is more populous than two states (Vermont and Wyoming) and is comparable to several more. "Taxation without representation" is an oldie but goodie. D.C. doesn't control its own National Guard (which was a big issue during the Jan. 6 insurrection). Lots of arguments.

But none of them matter one whit. For the Democrats, the only issue is: statehood means two more Black Democratic senators. For Republicans, the only issue is: statehood means two more Black Democratic senators. All the rest is just noise.

If voting rights were really the main problem, Maryland could take back the land it ceded to create the District in the first place and pick up another House seat and electoral vote. Republicans would be 100% behind that and Democrats (and most Marylanders, and Districters) would be 100% against it.

A minor technical problem is that if D.C. were to become a state, then it would have three electoral votes on account of it being a state and also three electoral votes on account of the 23rd Amendment. The proposal currently on the table would solve that problem by fast-tracking the repeal of the 23rd Amendment and tying it to statehood.

The hearing was all well and good, but the reality is that when it comes to a vote in the full Senate, the Republicans will filibuster it. Unless something is done to rein in the filibuster, it won't get through the Senate. But reining in the filibuster will require the approval of Joe Manchin. Manchin understands very well that as soon as two new Democratic senators are seated, all his power as the deciding vote on everything will be gone with the wind. So while he may be fed enough pork sausage to get him to vote to do something about the filibuster in order to pass the voting rights bill that he wrote himself, D.C. statehood is going to be a much bigger hill for the Democrats to climb since it directly affects Manchin's own power. (V)

Labor and Green Groups Urge Biden to Reject Watered-Down Infrastructure Plan

Joe Biden is still hoping to get a bipartisan deal on infrastructure. That will mean greatly scaling down the plan and taking money already appropriated for other purposes and counting it as new infrastructure money. Not all Democrats see bipartisanship as some kind of holy grail, though. In particular, the BlueGreen Alliance, which includes some of the biggest unions and environmental groups, yesterday strongly urged Biden to forget about bipartisanship and just pass his original proposal using budget reconciliation.

Unions and environmental activists are frequently at odds. For example, environmentalists want to phase out fossil fuels, an industry employing many union workers. But the BlueGreen Alliance is thinking about large factories, staffed by union workers, and churning out solar panels, wind turbines, new power stations, electric vehicles, and other equipment needed for a green future. The group doesn't want the bill to be watered down so much that there isn't much left. Biden depends heavily on union support and can't afford to antagonize the left too much, so he can't just ignore this pressure.

In the end, a lot depends on the Republicans. If they insist on a proposal that is so weak that it is essentially meaningless, Biden will be forced to reject it and the BlueGreen Alliance will let out a sigh of relief. But if the Republicans agree to something like $1.2 trillion in new spending, Biden might cave and agree to it. However, if enough progressive Democrats try to torpedo it in the Senate, it may go down for lack of 60 votes, even if a dozen Republicans vote for it. In any event, the pressure is on. (V)

Judge Rules Against Protesters in Lafayette Square Case

After protesters were cleared from Lafayette Square with tear gas, batons, clubs, a helicopter, and other crowd control measures last June, Donald Trump went over there, to St. John's Church, for a photo-op holding a Bible. Some people believed (and still believe) that Trump had ordered the peaceful protesters to be removed so he could have his photo-op. And so, the ACLU, Black Lives Matter, and other groups sued Trump and other officials. Now federal judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, has ruled on the case.

In the ruling, the judge decided that then-AG William Barr is immune to civil lawsuits and thus could not be sued for damages. She also ruled that Black Lives Matter did not have standing, since it could not demonstrate how the group was damaged by the government's actions. She rejected the idea that Donald Trump, Barr and then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper conspired to violate the civil rights of the protesters. She noted that those officials were in communication, but there is insufficient evidence that they were conspiring to violate the protesters' rights. The judge also rejected the plaintiffs request for her to order the government to stop using force to clear protesters in the future.

The plaintiffs were not happy about all this. Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU, said: "Today's ruling essentially gives the federal government a green light to use violence, including lethal force against demonstrators, as long as federal officials claim to be protecting national security."

The Dept. of Justice was pleased, however. It had argued that U.S. officials are immune to civil lawsuits over police actions taken to protect the president and secure his movements.

Other reports have said that the clearing of the Square was actually not related to Trump at all, but related to an order given the day before on account of a plan to put fencing on the Square. Whether that is correct or not, this particular lawsuit was a longshot, even if it had gotten before a non-Trump judge. (V)

Will the Free Market Make Bernie Sanders Obsolete?

When future historians write about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), his push for a $15/hr minimum wage will be a big part of the story. The chances of a federal law setting the minimum to $15 any time soon are remote, since not every Senate Democrat is for it and no Senate Republicans are in favor. But maybe the minimum wage will rise to (somewhere around) $15/hr, even without Sanders' help.

What we are seeing now, as many businesses are reopening, is that many workers who used to work for less don't want their old jobs back. The Washington Post examined some national statistics and interviewed people around the country and published an article about this. The article notes that about 650,000 low-wage workers quit in April, the largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began collecting data more than 20 years ago. It also talked to people like Aislinn Potts of Murfreesboro, TN, who left her $11/hr job in a pet store. She said: "My life isn't worth a dead-end job." She isn't the only one who feels this way.

As the economy opens up, employers are discovering that many low-wage workers don't want to come back, and are looking for better jobs at higher wages. The sudden need for more workers is going to cause the market to do what it always does when something is scarce: raise its price. In this case, if pet stores can't get people to work for $11/hr, they are going to have to offer $12, or $13, or $14, or maybe even $15. Large employers in particular aren't going to go to $12/hr, see if enough people of the right quality show up, and then if it doesn't work, go to $13/hr. That will take too long. Many of them are going to have to boost wages substantially in order to be fully staffed. They may not all go to $15/hr right off the bat, but things are clearly moving in that direction. And some of the biggest companies definitely are going to $15/hr right now. These include Target, Best Buy, Under Armour, and Kay Jewelers. Amazon has been paying all workers at least $15/hr since 2018 and has over 1 million workers, so it alone has a big impact on wages nationally. If the shortage of workers continues, other companies are going to have to follow suit in order to compete. If the free market decides that the minimum wage should be $15/hr, then Congress might even pass a law to make it official since the law won't actually do anything. So, in the end, Sanders may get what he wants, albeit not at all the way he wanted to get it. (V)

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