ThE AFL-CIO SPENT LESS THAN $ 1 million on TV ads over the Easter congressional recess to attack two dozen House Republicans for opposing a hike in the minimum wage — and the labor chiefs got their money’s worth. The ads were simple: Each GOP House member had “voted to block a minimum wage increase after he voted to cut Medicare, cut college loans, all to give a tax break to the rich.” The member under attack, the ad said, “should start voting for America’s families.” This demagogic pitch produced a touch of panic among a pivotal smattering of congressmen. “A meltdown,” a business lobbyist calls it, “the politics of fear.” Even normally unwavering conservatives like Frank Cremeans of Ohio wavered. “I’m getting killed on this,” he told an associate. Anxious conservatives and Republican moderates, combined with nearly every Democrat, tipped the balance in the House in favor of boosting the $ 4.25-per-hour minimum wage by as much as a dollar an hour. Meanwhile, a majority supporting a hike emerged in the Senate, too.
This was a disaster for Republicans in more ways than one. As recently as March, they controlled the agenda in the House, passing modest health- insurance reform and a line4tem veto and reaching agreement on product- liability changes. But their collapse on the minimum wage means Democrats, with liberals and labor in the lead, are now on offense. Neither House Speaker Newt Gingrich nor Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole could control his troops. Last year, Gingrich held Republicans together on tough conservative votes to slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid, slash social spending, and curb environmental regulation.
This spring, he doesn’t have the clout — or the energy-to enforce party unity in opposition to the minimum wage. And this is happening despite the absence of a public clamor on the issue. On the contrary, a Republican pollster conducted focus groups of swing voters and found they laughed at the notion an increase in the minimum wage would ease the middle-class squeeze. Democrats thought so little of the issue as a crowd-pleaser they never brought it up in 1993 and 1994 when they controlled both the White House and Congress.
There’s worse. Republicans have lost their ideological self-confidence. In 1995, they believed fervently in their conservative agenda. Even if some of their stands were unpopular — Medicare, college loans, school lunches — most Republicans were convinced they were right. They dismissed Democratic criticism as feckless. But losing the budget show-down with President Clinton shook their resolve. Now, facing reelection in November and with no agenda of their own to promote, several dozen of them have grown fearful that tired, old Democratlc issues will hurt them. Thus, as many as one-third of the 74 House GOP freshmen may vote to raise the minimum wage.
Dole tried to sidetrack Senate Democrats who are pushing for a raise. But a procedural error left him in the vulnerable position of having to fight off minimum-wage amendments on every bill. With roughly eight Republicans in favor of increasing the minimum wage, Dole lacks a majority. All he can do now is attach amendments to a minimum-wage bill he says “the Democrats might not be so crazy about” and organized labor would abhor. Thus, they’d have to oppose it. In any event, Dole’s strategy of using his Senate post to carry out his presidential campaign has once again proved to be a loser.
Gingrich would like to shield Dole from political trouble, but he hasn’t figured out how. He has, however, created a split with other House Republican leaders, especially Majority Leader Dick Armey. To Armey’s surprise, Gingrich said on April 18 that a minimum-wage bill, with amendments, might be voted on in the House. “Since we know that a minimum-wage increase kills jobs, there ought to be a package that includes other things that create more jobs to make up,” he told reporters. Later, at a meeting of Gingrich’s “union project, ” he and others discussed ways to thwart labor’s anti-GOP efforts and publicize labor-union corruption. But when Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he didn’t have the jurisdiction to hold hearings, Gingrich was silent. And when the meeting reconvened after a floor vote, Gingrich didn’t show up. Nothing was decided.
What’s amazing about House and Senate Republicans is how few are willing, in a conservative era, to make the economic and social case against a minimum- wage hike. Armey is. On April 17, he sent Republicans a letter that argues, correctly, that a minimum-wage increase “will only increase the number of non- working Americans by destroying crucial, entry-level jobs.” So is John Boehner, head of the House Republican Conference. He sent a memo reminding House members that both President Clinton and Joseph Stiglitz, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, opposed a hike as recently as 1993. But after Armey and Boehner, the ranks thin.
At best, Republicans will be able to delay a vote on the matter, then add conservative amendments. “I’ll commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill,” says Boehner. But labor-fomented trouble for the GOP may continue. The money the AFL-CIO spent on TV ads “is only the tip of the iceberg of the $ 35 million” that’s been targeted on House Republicans, lobbyist Mark Isakowitz of the National Federation of Independent Business reminded Gingrich on April 18. Gingrich responded that boosting the minimum wage is labor’s most popular issue. It’s an anomaly, Gingrich suggested. But GOP wavering doesn’t seem anomalous at all these days.
by Fred Barnes
