WASHINGTON — A bitter fight over legislative tactics and the minimum wage shifted to the Senate after the House early on Saturday approved a $2.10 increase in the wage scale but tied it to a reduction in the estate tax and a package of tax breaks.
In an early-morning decision that Republican leaders said they hoped would provide political benefits to lawmakers headed home for five weeks of campaigning, the House voted 230-180 to increase the federally required pay rate to $7.25 over three years — the first increase in nearly a decade.
"This bill actually stands a chance of being signed into law," said Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo, R-N.J. "If we really want to give relief to working men and women who deserve this change, this is the opportunity."
But Democrats criticized the decision as a cynical charade intended to give Republicans the appearance of supporting an increase in the minimum wage through a bill that would not clear the Senate because of opposition to an estate tax change aimed at extremely affluent Americans.
"In all my years here, this is the height of hypocrisy," said Rep. Sander M. Levin, D-Mich., who said Republicans were moved to consider a raise in the minimum wage only out of fear of losing House seats in November. "If you really cared, you would have acted long ago. This is not an election-year conversion; it is an election-year trick."
Senate Democrats, who have successfully blocked past Republican efforts to slash the estate tax, suggested that they would try to do so again despite the inclusion of the minimum-wage increase they had been clamoring for in recent years.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said the Republican tactic would not succeed. "It smacks of desperation," Manley said, "and it demonstrates Republicans have given up on trying to legislate for the year and are only trying to score cheap political points."
But 34 House Democrats joined 196 Republicans in sending the measure to the Senate, while 158 Democrats, 21 Republicans and one independent opposed it.
Under the minimum-wage proposal, the rate would increase from the current $5.15 per hour in three increments, reaching $7.25 in June 2009. It would also allow tips to be counted toward minimum-wage increases in some states where that is now prohibited, a provision Democrats said would end up cutting wages for thousands of workers in those states.
House Republican leaders said their Senate counterparts had argued that the only way the wage increase would survive in the Senate was if it was coupled with the estate tax reductions. To sweeten the pot even more, Republicans moved $38 billion in a wide array of tax breaks to the estate tax bill from a pension overhaul that was approved Friday.
"What we have done is try to package this to succeed in getting the minimum wage through the other body," said Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.