The New Populism Conference, With Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, Today 9 AM to 5:30 PM
Click to watch livestream of the New Populism Conference, and check out conference agenda at ourfuture.org/thenewpopulismconference.
Conference will be free to attend in person after 2 PM for those who want to hear closing addresses by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rev. William Barber.
House Committee Rejects Minimum Wage Hike
House Appropriations committee rejects minimum wage hike in transportation bill. The Hill: "...the panel’s Republicans rejected DeLauro’s amendment to raise the wage to $10.10 per hour and then voted to approve the $52 billion transportation, housing and urban development bill, clearing it for floor action likely next month ... the committee on party lines defeated several Democratic attempts to increase funding to rail safety, Amtrak, TIGER infrastructure grants and community block grants."
Higher minimum may create jobs, notes W. Post's Harold Meyerson: "In April, the Paychex/IHS survey, which looks at employment in small businesses, found that the state with the highest percentage of annual job growth was Washington — the state with the highest minimum wage in the nation, $9.32 an hour. The metropolitan area with the highest percentage of annual job growth was San Francisco — the city with the highest minimum wage in the nation, at $10.74. This suggests that the relationship between a high minimum wage and job creation needn’t be inverse."
Climate PAC Zeroes In On Seven Races
Tom Steyer targets seven races. Politico: "...all part of his $100 million effort to make climate change a prime campaign issue ... The former hedge fund executive’s super PAC, NextGen Climate Action, is targeting the Senate races in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and New Hampshire and the governor’s races in Florida, Maine and Pennsylvania ... Steyer’s multistate push will be the biggest test yet of whether Democrats can take advantage of the freewheeling outside spending wrought by Citizens United..."
Steyer hopes successful effort will impact 2016. NYT: "...the goal, Mr. Steyer’s strategists say, is to pave the way for climate change to become a major issue in the next presidential campaign, by elevating it in the minds of voters in states that will play crucial roles in nominating and electing the next president ... 'Independent voters, with regard to the issue of climate change, track much more closely with Democrats than Republicans,' said Edward Maibach, the director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. 'Painting candidates as climate deniers stands a good chance of working in districts where the vote turns on independents.'"
Grist's Ben Adler previews the fight ahead to enact climate regs on existing power plants: "The release of the draft rules won’t mean that environmentalists can rest easy. They will need to pressure the EPA to choose sufficiently ambitious CO2 limits and deadlines, and to make sure that all the economic benefits of energy efficiency, cleaner air, less climate change, and growth in the clean energy sector are taken into account in the economic modeling ... But much of the fight over the rules won’t happen within the EPA’s carefully prescribed process. It’ll happen in histrionic political ads and cable news sound bites as conservatives invoke the specter of skyrocketing electric bills and economic collapse to bash vulnerable Democrats ahead of the November elections."
Red state Dems push Obama to scale back rules on new coal plants. The Hill: "A collection of seven Senate Democrats are pressuring President Obama to scale-back the proposed carbon limits on new coal-fired power plants. In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, the senators asserted that the technology the rule is based on is not commercially viable ... Opponents of Obama's carbon emissions limits for new power plants have long argued that the carbon capture sequestration technology the Environmental Protection Agency proposes plants use is nowhere near ready."
Breakfast Sides
"Dems want Holder to lower boom on big banks" reports The Hill: "Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who lit into the Justice Department’s investigation into Credit Suisse at a February hearing, called the [guilty] plea 'proof that we will put a heck of a lot of pressure on you to make you accountable if you aid and abet tax evasion.' But Levin added, 'the Justice Department, I don’t think, can make the argument that banks or powerful people are too big to jail until they prove it.' ... [Sen. Sheldon] Whitehouse cautioned, 'I don’t think people will be convinced on the basis of one decision, one prosecution alone.'"
House Majority Leader Cantor signals support for allowing citizenship to undocumented vets. W. Post: "Cantor said Wednesday that 'My position has always been... that if you’re a kid who was brought here by your parents, in many cases unbeknownst to that person, and you want to serve in our military and you know no other country as home, you ought to be able to do that and be able to become a citizen...' [But on] whether he will schedule a vote on Denham's proposal at a later date, Cantor said that 'no decision has been made'"
Detroit public worker retirees lash out at proposed pension cuts. NYT: "Palpable anger among those at the meeting was a clear indication that despite tentative deals the city has reached with the committee ... persuading the retirees will be a completely different battle ... A vote by retirees to approve the city’s plans would help close a $3.5 billion shortfall in the pension system, and it would result in as much as a 4.5 percent cut to most pension checks. If the plan is rejected and the outside funding is lost, some retirees could lose as much as 27 percent. A vote of support would come at a price, forcing them to give up the ability to pursue litigation against bankruptcy decisions."
