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 Voters in the Republican-controlled states of Alaska, Arkansas,
Nebraska and South Dakota will consider ballot initiatives in
November that would raise the minimum wage above the national rate
of $7.25 per hour. Activists on both sides of the issue say the
proposals stand a good chance of passing.
If successful, the ballot measures would provide further evidence
that the idea of raising minimum pay has support across party lines.
A favorable outcome could also turn up the heat on Congress to raise
the national rate. Obama proposed raising the national minimum to $9
per hour in his 2013 State of the Union address and now advocates
for a national minimum of $10.10. But the idea has gained little
traction among Republicans who control the House of Representatives.
Congress last voted to raise the national wage in 2007 following
successful ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri,
Montana, Nevada and Ohio. Since last year, some 13 states and six
cities, largely controlled Democrats, have raised their own minimum
wages. In Seattle, the minimum wage will gradually rise to $15 an
hour by 2021, the nation's highest rate.
 "State and local momentum is what drives Congress to ultimately
follow suit, and 2014 has really laid the foundation," said Jack
Temple, a policy analyst at the left-leaning National Employment Law
Project.
THE END AROUND
The ballot initiatives allow labor unions, charity groups and
Democrats a way to boost wages in states where Republican-controlled
state legislatures have been reluctant to act. Voters haven't
rejected a minimum-wage hike at the ballot box since 1996 and have
approved 13 raises in conservative and liberal-leaning states since
then, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
In 2013, for instance, voters in New Jersey passed an increase to
$8.25 per hour after Republican Gov. Chris Christie vetoed an
increase that had passed the legislature.
Lawmakers in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Michigan opted to raise
the minimum wage this year to head off ballot initiatives in their
states. Voters in Democratic-controlled Illinois will weigh in on a
non-binding proposal in November as well.
Business groups have successfully lobbied against a minimum-wage
increase in Congress and many state legislatures by arguing that it
would slow job creation and raise costs. That's a tougher sell when
talking directly to voters.
"It's other people's money - it's easy to spend," said Denny DeWitt,
who is leading the fight against the minimum-wage hike in Alaska as
state director of the National Federation of Independent Business.
SAVING THE SENATE
The ballot questions could also boost Democrats' chances of holding
on to the Senate in November by drawing in low-wage workers who
otherwise might sit out the election.
Just as Republicans used gay marriage ballot initiatives to drive up
turnout among religious conservatives in the last decade, Democrats
now aim to boost turnout with the minimum wage question, said
Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political
Report.
Geoff Holland is a good example. A janitor in Lincoln, Nebraska,
Holland heard about the ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage
in his state to $9 an hour during a visit to a food pantry. Though
he does not usually participate in politics, Holland said he plans
to vote for the measure this fall. "It has to be done," said
Holland, who earns $8 per hour. "The price of everything else goes
up and the wages don't go up."
Omaha, Nebraska waitress Sonia Bentley, a self-described political
independent, says she doesn't support Democratic priorities like
expanding Medicaid health coverage for the poor. But her opinion of
Republican officeholders has soured since she began advocating for a
minimum wage hike.
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Holland and Bentley aside, the ballot questions aren't exactly a
slam-dunk for the Democrats. For instance, they may not help
Democratic Senate candidates in South Dakota and Nebraska, where
Republican candidates are heavily favored. But the proposal could
make a difference in Alaska, where incumbent Sen. Mark Begich faces
a tough re-election battle. The AFL-CIO labor union, which backs
Begich, is making the minimum-wage ballot question a core part of
its message in door-knocking and phone calls to voters. Voters in
that state also will consider a proposal to legalize marijuana,
another measure that could help Democrats.
Alaska Republicans who control the state legislature, in fact, tried
to raise the state minimum wage this spring. But they were blocked
by Democrats and their allies who wanted to put the question
directly to voters instead.
The proposal would raise the state's minimum wage from $7.75 to
$9.75 by 2016 and adjust it for inflation after that.
In Arkansas, both Democratic Senator Mark Pryor and his Republican
challenger, Tom Cotton, back the ballot proposal that would
gradually raise the state minimum wage to $8.50 an hour by 2017.
A poll this spring found that nearly 8 in 10 Arkansas voters
supported the raise. That's a sign that many voters in one of the
nation's poorest states know someone personally who is struggling to
make ends meet on minimum wage, said Steve Copley, a Methodist
minister who chairs the advocacy group Give Arkansas A Raise Now,
The minimum-wage push could help Pryor by drawing in otherwise
ambivalent Democratic voters like Jennifer Nelson, who works two
minimum-wage jobs as a home health aide and day care worker.
"I don't dislike him or like him," Nelson said of Pryor. The ballot
proposal, on the other hand, "would make a big difference. I'd have
a little extra money. I'd try to save it."
THE BOTTOM LINE
If successful, the ballot initiatives would boost wages for 419,000
workers, says the National Employment Law Project. That's on top of
the 7 million workers who will benefit from the other state and
local increases passed over the previous two years, but still far
short of the 28 million workers that the White House estimates would
benefit from a national $10.10 rate.
But it's unclear if the White House will ultimately benefit.
Advocates of the four ballot initiatives are eager to put distance
between their efforts and those of a president who has little
support in their states. In Nebraska, advocates say their low cost
of living and conservative-leaning electorate prompted them to
settle on a target of $9 an hour by 2016.
"We definitely took pains when crafting the measure to ensure that
it was right for Nebraska," said Democratic State Sen. Danielle
Conrad. "We weren't just blindly following a national trend."
(Editing by Caren Bohan and Hank Gilman)
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