I have copy-and-pasted below my letter to the editors of the Eagle Tribune and the Newburyport Daily News. I’d like to again extend warm thanks and an h/t to the good folks of Progressive Massachusetts. They made me aware of both Senator O’Connor Ives’ flip-flopping positions on the minimum wage and her very conservative voting record thus far. (And it’s telling that the folks at Mass Fiscal generally agree about her record.)
Suffice it to say (perhaps), this stuff is important, and her votes are deeply disappointing.
* * *
Senator O’Connor Ives Owes Us An Explanation For Her Minimum Wage Votes
Last week, state Sen. Kathleen O’Connor Ives voted in opposition to a bill that proposes to raise the state minimum wage to $11 over the course of three years and index it to the rate of inflation thereafter (S. 1925, “An act to restore the minimum wage”). She was just one of seven senators to do so, and (thankfully) the bill passed the state Senate overwhelmingly.
During debate of the bill, Sen. O’Connor Ives proposed amendments to, among other things, raise the minimum wage instead to just $9 per hour (a mere dollar increase over the current rate of $8 per hour) and nullify the portion of the bill that would index it to inflation. These amendments starkly contrast with her stated positions on these matters just last year. In questionnaire responses [see page three of seven] she submitted to Progressive Massachusetts, a grassroots political advocacy group, Sen. O’Connor Ives expressed support for both a $10 minimum wage and indexing it to inflation. So, I wonder: Aside from her no longer chasing after Progressive Massachusetts’ endorsement, what caused her to change her mind?
On her Facebook page, Sen. O’Connor Ives explains that her opposition and her various amendment proposals are borne out of concern for the impact she thinks the bill would have on small businesses. If the bill were to become law, some businesses will, indeed, have to become more efficient, absorb some costs and otherwise adapt. But she ignores the fact that many more businesses will benefit from the wage increase, as it will lead to greater consumer purchasing power and, therefore, demand.
Both on her Facebook page post and in her opposition to the bill, she also ignores the concerns of workers who live in abject poverty, thousands of whom live in her district. Whether it’s struggling to keep up with the state’s high cost of living or worrying about how they’ll afford the next meal for themselves and their children, the concerns of the working poor certainly have not changed over the course of the last year.
I believe Sen. O’Connor Ives owes the working poor, as well as the progressives who supported her last year, an explanation.
* * *
Update: this story appeared in the Eagle Tribune and the Newburyport Daily News on Tuesday morning. Senator O’Connor Ives here (again) expresses concern for the impact of the proposed minimum wage increase on small businesses. She also says this: “It’s my position that an intermediate increase to $9 would be a good thing and it would be more likely to pass if it were at that level. I would not like it to get stymied in debate over whether it is $9, $10, $11 or (CPI). I believe we should raise it to $9 and then assess the impact of that.”
On the one hand, I just find this odd. Again, the bill that proposed to raise the minimum wage to $11 over three years and index it to inflation thereafter PASSED OVERWHELMINGLY, while her amendments to raise it to just $9 and nullify the index to inflation FAILED. (She may be talking about the House vote here, but the Senate has already expressed what it wants.) On the other hand, I just wonder if she gets it–that having that debate about whether to raise it to “$9, $10, $11 or (CPI)” IS IMPORTANT and entails MEANINGFUL DIFFERENCES to the working poor.
In the article, she again doesn’t address the discrepancy between what she told Progressive Massachusetts a year ago she’d support (the $10 and the index to inflation) and her amendments last week. (It’s also not clear to me whether the Eagle Tribune/Newburyport Daily News asked her about this.) This is a clear flip-flopping about a very important issue.
Oy.
…is that Eileen Donoghue voted against as well, which is surprising and disappointing.
n/t
It passed 32-7
but the amendments beforehand were interesting, and not as close.
Voter education is critical to educating voters. Too many people meet their state rep at a local ballgame, parade, or community forum and don’t examine the actual votes to make their decisions. One cannot call oneself a progressive and vote against raising the minimum wage. Particularly using the ‘small business’ canard talking point straight out of Fox News.
This is about mitigating the social costs of McJobs and forcing those companies to absorb the healthcare and cost of living expenses for it’s employees, instead of dumping them on the state. I can think of few pieces of legislation that are as simultaneously fiscally conservative and socially responsible as this one.
How about this link:
Scorecard : Senate 2013-14
Saw your letter on the twitters. Great job, and I hope these Senators will hear from their constituents. It sounds like the House is going to make the passage of Minimum Wage as fraught/quid-pro-quo-ish as possible — ‘no increase unless you pass “reforms” the biz community wants!’
The action piece right now seems to be this: Call your *Reps* in the House and tell them to support an $11 minimum wage that’s indexed to inflation, and to link the tipped wage to 50% of the minimum wage.
In other news, it seems the Raise Up MA minimum wage and earned sick time petitions are going on the ballot: 281,956 signatures!!!
I see in online news reports that Republicans will vote for increasing the Minimum Wage if it’s packaged with “reform” of Unemployment Insurance, which they claim is an unbearable burden for businesses. None of the reports give any details at all about what the “reforms” would be. Have the Repubs put forth any specifics?
is to make it harder for people in the state who have lost their jobs to qualify to Unemployment Insurance in the first place. This proposal is more commonly pitched to employers as making Massachusetts a more competitive place to do business.
So, in place of the current system, which to some extent discourages employers from casually churning their workforce, the Republicans are pushing a system that encourages it. Under their proposal, if an employer can keep laying off his workers frequently enough, he won’t have to pay unemployment compensation for them, because they’ll be ineligible for UI.
I have several proposals of my own for what the Republicans can do with theirs. I don’t think I can post them here, though.
The reforms currently being touted by business interests (and which seem most likely to be included in a House compromise next year) are:
1) Lowering the total duration of state unemployment benefits from 30 weeks to 26 weeks.
2) Requiring workers to be employed for at least 20 weeks before being eligible for benefits, up from the current 15 weeks.
See e.g.: http://www.mhtc.org/images/StatementRestoreMinimumWage.pdf
…what I described in the comment upthread is the same as Number 2 on your list.
I’ve updated the post with the functional link.
Shocking, isn’t it!
Also her district hugs the NH border, so there’s more concern about immediate competitiveness. People that live in Boston won’t drive to NH to save a couple bucks on dinner out, but someone who lives in Haverhill might.
I am tempted to say “Don’t make excuses for her,” because I can’t imagine a campaign where she’d be successfully attacked for voting to raise the minimum wage.
Think about it — even if her district is chock full of small business owners who are worried, unless they all employ less than one person, there will be more people who will be thankful for the vote.
But I am curious what she was thinking, so hopefully she’ll weigh in.
They’d be wasting money. NH meals tax is 8%.
As for “competitiveness,” I keep having to say this: if NH is so very business-friendly, why are Rte3 and Rte95 clogged every rush hour by hordes of NH residents eager to pay MA income tax?
NH meals tax is 9%.
My fiance and I visited Boston a month ago and had to listen to some NH native living in Malden gripe about how terrible our taxes and crime are for nearly the entire trip. Seeing this began when we are at Midway airpot in Chicago I was tempted to scream at her “just look outside-they are both significantly worse here!”.
My fiance literally saves all her shopping for our trips to Boston since she doesn’t have to pay taxes on most clothing items. We were almost tempted to buy our meat for the month at MacKinnon’s (which is absurdly cheap to begin with) and take it on the plane. Having lived in Illinois for almost seven years I can honestly say MA is one of the most fiscally responsible states on the planet. Taxes are moderately rated, services are generally excellent, and we have a great education system making a competitive economy. Raising the minimum wage will only improve the likelihood of employees to move to our state attracted by opportunities. We may even steal more Granite Staters, though they better stop griping on airplanes!
New Hampshire can only shrink its government so much. So they cling to no sales or income tax, but have 9% on meals, and a tax on gas practically equal to MA, and sky-high property taxes in any towns looking to have a decent school system.
I’ll never forget the guy I knew who moved to NH to “get away from all the taxes.” His property tax doubled, he still worked in MA and had to pay MA income tax (which he didn’t realize), and he spent two hours each morning in bumper-to-bumper. Serves him right.
Not taxes.
I’m not saying I agree with her vote; I strongly support the minimum wage increase. Rather just explaining for the people here that seem mystified by it.
…small businesses in Haverhill or the working poor in her district struggling to get by on poverty-level wages? How many of her constituents are getting government aid while working full-time jobs at minimum wage?
Based on her public comments, O’Connor Ives is clearly more concerned with protecting businesses that rely on government programs to subsidize their employee’s basic needs, than addressing the problems of the working poor.
But it is unfair to portray O’Connor Ives as uncaring based on one issue. That is why her lead role in “reforming” welfare in the state is so disconcerting. On the one hand she opposes a plan that will lift some of the working poor out of poverty (by increasing the minimum wage) and on the other hand she supports efforts to deny support for the poor. The net result is O’Connor Ives is truly screwing the most vulnerable in our society.
Clearly O’Connor Ives has shown a consistent pattern of fighting against the needs of the poor in the state and her district.
There were scores of liberal organizations that supported this freshman St. Senator in her 2012 election. Given that she won because two candidates from the geographically stronger part of the district split the vote, O’Connor Ives is very, very vulnerable. Given her record, it’s time to start recruiting a candidate that will represent her constituents and not business interests.
He was one of the other candidates last time and has been making some moves that I interpret as considering another run.
It is with genuine sadness that I must agree with this post. Having managed Sen. Ives’ primary campaign I’m in a unique position to view in disbelief her continuing descent into conservatism or political cowardice.
It is one thing not to have a consistently progressive voting record; it is another to engage in bashing our most vulnerable and disadvantaged citizens. For me at least, this shameless attack on the poor is where I must draw the line.
Sen. Ives has left the reservation and expected no one to notice from the left. Well, we are noticing. What are we going to do about it ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
(NOTE: The writer interned for the late Senator Edward Kennedy and is a Founding Member of the Honorary Fellows of the John F. Kennedy Library)
Your comment here is quite an interesting development, to say the least. To answer your question directly, the folks from Progressive Massachusetts, as well as myself and a few others locally, are making an effort to spread the word about her record. Unfortunately, the two local papers thus far don’t seem interested in reporting on this story (the disparities between her stated positions and her votes). A few of us have also addressed our concerns to the Senator directly. But I think ultimately–as I believe you’re hinting at above–we need someone to challenge her record and run a strong primary against her. Thank you, sir, for commenting. (Glad I caught this!)