WASHINGTON (AP) — Elizabeth MacDonough has guided the Senate through two impeachment trials. She’s vexed Democrats and Republicans alike with parliamentary opinions and helped rescue Electoral College certificates from a pro-Trump mob ransacking the Capitol. Now, the Senate’s first-ever woman parliamentarian is about to show anew why she’s one of Washington’s most potent, respected yet obscure figures. Any day, she’s expected to reveal if she thinks a federal minimum wage boost should be stricken from Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan. Her decision will be a political minefield likely to elicit groans from whichever side she disappoints. And it will play an outsized role in deciding the wage increase’s fate.
