WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Mark Pryor is doing a delicate
dance over congressional Democrats’ upcoming push to boost the federal
minimum wage. The Democrat from Republican-leaning Arkansas says he’ll
vote against the bill, but on the key roll call may oppose GOP efforts
to filibuster it to death.
Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska,
another red state where President Barack Obama is deeply unpopular, has
no such qualms. He not only backs the legislation to gradually raising
the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour by 2016 but is
co-sponsoring it.
The two Marks, both seeking re-election this
fall, exemplify how local politics is complicating Democrats’ push on
what most of them consider a can’t-miss campaign-year issue.
Tentative
plans to debate the bill have slipped several times since late last
year, and Democratic leaders delayed Senate debate on the proposal yet
again Tuesday, saying it would come up after lawmakers return from a
recess in late March.
Top Democrats blame GOP obstruction on
nominations for hindering the Senate from addressing minimum wage, one
of Obama’s top priorities. But one Senate aide and a union lobbyist said
Democrats prefer to refocus in coming days on extending benefits for
the long-term unemployed, which they have tried passing repeatedly this
year.
Though solid Republican opposition is the chief stumbling
block to a minimum wage boost, Senate Democrats’ long-shot prospects of
prevailing hinge on getting virtually every Democratic vote. Even if
they’re defeated, many Democrats see minimum wage as a political winner
because it lets them focus on income equality, motivate their most loyal
voters and cast Republican opponents as uncaring.
Sponsored by
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and backed by Obama, the minimum wage increase
likely would get enough support from the Senate’s 53 Democrats and two
independents to win final approval.
But first it would need 60
votes to overcome GOP procedural delays aimed at killing it, including
support from at least five Republicans — a tough election-year lift.
Leaders of the GOP-run House seem unlikely to even stage votes on the measure, wounding its prospects
further.
An
Associated Press-GfK poll last month found supporters of a minimum wage
increase outnumbering opponents 55 percent to 21 percent, with 23
percent neutral. Yet Pryor, expecting a tough re-election challenge from
GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, is treading gingerly.
Pryor favors a
proposed Arkansas ballot initiative to gradually raise the state’s $6.25
an hour minimum wage — one of the nation’s lowest — to $8.50. He says
the Senate bill’s $10.10 is "too fast" for Arkansas and will be defeated
anyway, while his state’s ballot initiative "is going to pass, and
that’s the difference."
Labor has little clout in Arkansas, where
unions represent 3 percent of workers, one of the country’s lowest
rates. The state’s weak economy produced an unemployment rate of 7.4
percent in December, higher than most. Those factors leave unions
reluctant to push Pryor aggressively to back the Senate bill.
"We’re
a state of low income, and our business is not the best in the world,"
said Alan Hughes, president of the Arkansas AFL-CIO. "I think he
understands the need for a compromise."
Said Randy Zook, president
of the state’s Chamber of Commerce, "I think he recognizes we have a
terrible unemployment problem now, and this will aggravate it."
Just
35 percent in Arkansas approve of Obama’s performance as president,
according to Gallup polling last year, one of his worst ratings
anywhere. That means opposing the bill could help Pryor by letting him
separate himself from Obama and national Democrats.
"It’s more
about divorcing himself from President Obama than it’s even about
wages," said Janine Parry, political science professor at the University
of Arkansas.
The senator says such distancing is "not the intention."
Things are different in Alaska, making Begich happy to back the Senate bill.
The
state had a more moderate December jobless rate of 6.4 percent and has a
potent labor movement, with 22 percent union membership, one of the
nation’s highest rates.
Alaska has a state minimum wage of $7.75,
which exceeds the federal level and is expected to rise further with a
ballot initiative this summer increasing the state minimum to $9.75 in
2016.
And though Obama is as unpopular in Alaska as in Arkansas,
Alaska has many independent voters and an entrenched working-class
ethos.
"I listened to a whole lot of diatribes against Obama,"
said Ed Flanagan, a former state labor commissioner who said he gathered
signatures for the minimum wage ballot initiative in conservative
areas. "But they signed the petition."
Begich seems unconcerned about backing Obama on the minimum wage.
"I’ve
got plenty to separate myself from the president" on higher-profile
issues, Begich said, citing differences over federal curbs on energy
development and his opposition to expanding gun buyers’ background
checks.
Other senators facing voters this year who must also gauge
home-state sentiment include Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who must be
careful to not tie herself too closely to Obama in conservative
Louisiana. She said she supports an increase, but $10.10 would be "a
pretty significant jump" for Louisiana, which has no minimum of its own.
Sen.
Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she worries about the size of the $10.10
proposal. She said she was working with other Republicans on an
alternative with incentives to keep small businesses from cutting jobs.
The
$10.10 proposal got mixed reviews last week from the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office. It said the increase could cost the economy
500,000 jobs in 2016, while lifting 900,000 people over the poverty
line.
That hasn’t deterred Democrats from seeking Senate votes.
"Bring
it up. And when you don’t get 60 votes, bring it up again," said Brad
Woodhouse, president of the liberal Americans United for Change. "It’s
one of those things where the politics are so good for Democrats."
"Democrats
are trying to refocus the national conversation around anything but the
two major issues that have plagued them for the last several years" —
Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul and the economy, said Brad Dayspring,
spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s
Senate campaign arm.
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