20 GOP Lawmakers Break Ranks, Back a Wage Boost

Parting company with GOP leaders on a potent election-year issue, 20 House Republicans joined forces with Democrats on Wednesday in supporting an increase in the minimum wage.

The move by the GOP lawmakers, who introduced legislation calling for two successive 50-cent hikes in the $4.25-an-hour minimum wage, provides the first clear indication that sufficient support may exist in both the House and the Senate to pass an increase.

Democrats backing a White House plan to boost the minimum wage by 90 cents in two steps have been trying to use the issue as a major element of their campaign to regain control of the House and retain the presidency in the November elections.

By introducing their own measure, the House Republicans--most of whom are moderates from Northeastern states--are attempting to gain some credit for pushing a pay increase for the nation’s lowest-wage workers, an initiative that polls show is supported by the vast majority of Americans.

“All of us believe that people who work a 40-hour workweek ought to earn a wage they can live on,” said Rep. Jack Quinn (R-N.Y.).

The House leadership has no plans to allow a vote on the issue, according to a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). But the Republican sponsors of the measure said they were optimistic about changing their leadership’s mind.

The minimum-wage issue has proved increasingly troublesome for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. Several times in recent weeks, the Kansas lawmaker has been forced to resort to parliamentary maneuvers to avoid floor votes on a minimum-wage hike.

On Tuesday, Dole pulled a major illegal immigration bill off the Senate floor in large part to avoid a Democratic attempt to amend the measure to include provisions raising the minimum wage.

With the pressure mounting on Dole to allow a vote, reports are circulating that he is preparing to announce a compromise. But Dole refuses to comment.

Clinton administration officials, who have been calling for a minimum-wage increase for 14 months, cheered the news of the House Republican initiative.

“Finally the dam has burst,” Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich said. “If you had asked me a month ago whether the president’s minimum-wage increase had a chance in this Congress, I would have been pessimistic. Now I am very cautiously optimistic.”

At a closed-door morning meeting of the Republican conference Wednesday, House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia asked members, “How many of you if this reaches the floor of the House would vote for it?” according to Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.).

“A significant number of hands went up,” Shays said.

When asked later by reporters if the issue would come up for a vote this year, Gingrich said: “I don’t know.”

Even though recent polls show as many as 84% of Americans support the increase, the small-business interests that make up a very important Republican base are firmly against it.

In California, voters apparently will have a direct say this November on whether to raise the minimum wage paid in the state from its current $4.25 to $5 next year and $5.75 in 1998. The California Labor Federation-AFL-CIO, Democratic lawmakers and various other groups announced Wednesday in Sacramento that they had turned in to election officials 772,000 signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot to raise the minimum wage. A total of 477,000 validated signatures are needed.