Solis Withdraws Bill to Raise Minimum Wage

A Democratic state senator withdrew her bill seeking to raise California’s minimum wage from a Republican-dominated legislative committee Wednesday, saying that changes the GOP members forced on her were unacceptable.

Sen. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte) said she would let the people decide the wage issue in the November elections, when a voter initiative mirroring her bill will appear on the statewide ballot. Solis’ measure (SB 500) and the initiative seek to raise the state’s minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to $5 in mid-1997 and to $5.75 a year later.

The bill, which faced an uphill fight in the GOP-dominated lower house, became the subject of unusual partisan theater in the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee.

Faced with hostile amendments that Republicans on the panel first forced into her bill, Solis dramatically declared her legislation dead.

“I at this point drop the bill,” a visibly angered Solis said, vowing not to present it at future hearings.

Committee Chairman George House (R-Hughson) told Solis, however, the bill was “now the property of this committee,” meaning Republicans could move it through the legislative process as they see fit.

But despite that maneuver, the “hijacked” measure faced certain doom on its return to the Democratic-controlled state Senate, where Solis heads the Industrial Relations Committee.

Also keeping hopes alive for backers of a higher minimum wage was a deal struck a day earlier in Congress between Republican and Democratic leaders to raise the wage nationally from $4.25 an hour to $5.15. Solis said before the hearing Wednesday that November’s voter initiative is necessary because “we anticipated we would not get our bill through the Assembly. . . . But that’s OK. We’re here to educate the public.”

Solis and other backers packed the small Capitol hearing room with union workers, farm workers, labor activists and clergy representatives.

Pitching her measure before it got sidetracked, Solis said that with California on the road to economic recovery, “now is the time to pass this bill” and relieve conditions that have left lowly paid workers stranded at the $4.25 per hour for the last eight years.

In the meantime, she said, “corporate profits are up 50%, CEO average pay has improved by 42%, but inflation has increased 26%.”

An increase in the minimum wage “isn’t going the break the bank,” she said.

Republicans responded by quoting from employer studies that state that 40% of minimum wage earners nationally are teenagers, many living at home.