Dems Ramp Up Pocketbook Push
Senate Dems prepare "pocketbook" votes to pressure GOP. NYT: "The effort is set to begin within the next two weeks in the Senate when Democrats will call a vote on their proposal to increase the minimum wage to $10.10, and it will continue through spring and summer with additional legislation to eliminate the pay gap between men and women, lower interest rates on college loans and close tax loopholes that benefit corporations with business overseas. The votes will be timed to coincide with campaign-style trips by President Obama..."
Unemployment insurance vote expected next week. Roll Call: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he plans to turn to the bipartisan unemployment extension compromise as quickly as possible under Senate rules, but there’s business to tend to first — namely an aid package for Ukraine and several pending judicial nominations."
5 Senate GOPers firm on joining Dems on jobless aid. Politico: "...those Senate Republicans have no intention of reversing their stance and are preparing instead to toss the hot-button issue right into Boehner’s lap, exposing the speaker to sharp election year Democratic attacks if the House fails to take up the legislation.
But "House GOP Not Feeling the Heat on Unemployment Vote" reports Roll Call: "...there may not be enough politically vulnerable Republican members who are feeling significant electoral pressure in their districts ... potentially electorally vulnerable House Republicans such as Rep. Steve Southerland II, R-Fla., [said] 'I was back in the district last week for 10 days and I did not have one person, in 14 counties, mention that issue to me,'..."
National Association of State Workforce Agencies president disputes Boehner's characterization of his technical concerns. Politico: "[President Mark] Henry said many in Washington had 'conflated' the concerns of his organization with the speaker’s comments. NASWA takes no position on whether the bill should proceed, he said, but was simply raising technical concerns. 'The letter that I wrote did not label the legislation "unworkable"; that was Speaker Boehner’s word,' Henry said."
Weak economy holding Dems back, argues NYT's Thomas Edsall: "Demographics look promising for the Democratic Party, but the people who make up those demographics seek economic change that the party shows no signs of delivering – and may not be able to deliver."
Chamber of Commerce hugs GOP. The Hill: "The vast majority of GOP lawmakers who defied the Chamber last year by voting against raising the debt ceiling and reopening the government remain in the business group’s good graces ... Of the 144 House Republicans who voted against the debt-ceiling hike, 138 have maintained a cumulative score of 70 percent or higher on the business group’s legislative scorecard for 2013. That’s enough to win an endorsement from the Chamber ... It’s a far cry from late 2013, when the Chamber and other business groups were openly rebuking some Republicans and threatening to go to war with the Tea Party in primaries."
Minimum Wage Hike Would Boost Women
New WH report explains how raising the minimum wage helps women. The Hill: "The report says women would disproportionately benefit from a minimum wage hike because women in the workforce are more highly concentrated in low-wage sectors like personal care and healthcare ... Some 55 percent of workers making below [$10.10/hr] are women."
WH notes that increasing tipped wages largely helps women. W. Post: "The report is a blueprint for Democrats, who are staking their midterm chances on the economy, aiming to maintain their edge with unmarried women ... Tipped workers number about 3 million, with servers making up the bulk of those workers, who are predominately women."
Skilled-trade apprenticeships key for women to earn higher wages. Bloomberg: "[Sylas[ DeMello, now an apprentice at Murray Electric in Burlington, Vermont ... makes $18 an hour and expects $25 once she has her journeyman’s license next year ... DeMello, 32, is one of more than 375,000 apprentices in the U.S. according to the Department of Labor. Just 6 percent were women in 2012 ... [Activists have] worked with the Labor Department to preserve funding for the 1992 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act, which receives about $1 million a year in federal money and places women in building trades. President Barack Obama’s 2015 budget would eliminate that program and instead proposes a vastly expanded four-year initiative at $500 million annually to help double the total number of registered apprenticeships."
House Dems To Announce Immigration Discharge Petition Today
Immigration activists prepare to wield discharge petition and pressure Republicans. National Journal: "Democrats are calling on the public to support the discharge petition, and outside organizations will be utilizing it in their advocacy. 'That's much better from an organizing perspective,' Jeff Hauser of the AFL-CIO said of signing the petition. 'Those working with immigrant communities, it allows us to know who are our friends and who are our enemies.'"
More from TNR's Nora Caplan-Bricker: "America’s Voice has already compiled a list of thirty House Republicans who have made supportive comments about reform—and who progressive groups plan to brand as hypocrites if they won’t sign. Most are from California, Florida, Nevada, and other states where the Latino community is growing rapidly as a share of voters. Immigrant-rights groups are already talking about districts where that changing electoral map could turn the petition—'an esoteric beltway term,' Jeff Hauser of the AFL-CIO acknowledged—into the rallying point for a public campaign."
Another CBO report finds huge deficit savings from immigration reform. Roll Call: "...Democrats will also be touting a Congressional Budget Office report reaffirming that overhauling the nation’s immigration system would cut the deficit by about $900 billion over twenty years, a figure that had lawmakers crowing Tuesday."
