Correction from yesterday: the Lamar Alexander rule, which creates a 60-vote obstacle to important new legislation such as any real increase in the minimum wage, was essentially in the background to block the minimum wage proposal, but wasn't actually unleashed. Here's a description from BNA's Daily Report for Executives: In the Senate, a proposal offered by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to raise the federal minimum from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over two years garnered support from a majority of senators with a 52-46 vote. The amendment was withdrawn, however, because Kennedy--in order to get the GOP to bring the proposal to a vote--struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) that the minimum wage amendment would need 60 supporters to be included on an unrelated Department of Defense authorization bill (S. 2766). Without that agreement, Republicans would have moved to block the minimum wage proposal, a move that also would have required 60 votes to overcome. So the Lamar Alexander rule was invoked to kill the minimum wage increase last November, but was an offstage threat this time (which is, by the way, uncomfortably close in time to a more important November for many politicos).