{"id":1188,"date":"2007-02-01T12:28:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-01T18:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/democrats-again-fighting-over-minimum-wage\/"},"modified":"2007-02-01T12:28:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-01T18:28:00","slug":"democrats-again-fighting-over-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/democrats-again-fighting-over-minimum-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats again fighting over minimum wage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RcIxhN4KcmI\/AAAAAAAAArg\/fJFieS1vxuE\/s1600-h\/Legislature.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RcIxhN4KcmI\/AAAAAAAAArg\/fJFieS1vxuE\/s200\/Legislature.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5026634580829565538\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>It appears that Democrats may again fight with Democrats on the issue of raising the minimum wage.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The issue isn\u2019t whether to do it: It\u2019s how it should be done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/news\/ci_5131051\" target=\"_blank\">Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> is reporting this morning that the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee on Wednesday endorsed Senate President Pro Tem <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.state.nm.us\/lcs\/legdetails.asp?Name=250\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Altamirano\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.state.nm.us\/Sessions\/07%20Regular\/bills\/senate\/SB0324.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">bill<\/a>. But earlier in the day, the newspaper reported, Speaker of the House <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.state.nm.us\/lcs\/legdetails.asp?Name=204\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Lujan<\/a> introduced his own, <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.state.nm.us\/Sessions\/07%20Regular\/bills\/house\/HB0759.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">different bill<\/a>, setting the stage for the same collision course that derailed a wage increase a year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Both bills raise the state minimum wage to $6.50 per hour in 2008 and $7.50 in 2009, but Altamirano\u2019s bill does not include indexing that would increase the minimum wage in the future to keep up with inflation, exempts agricultural workers and keeps cities and counties from passing their own wage increases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Lujan\u2019s bill, on the other hand, does include inflation indexing, doesn\u2019t exempt agricultural workers and doesn\u2019t keep cities and counties from increasing the minimum wage beyond the level set by the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Altamirano told the Sun-News his bill is backed by the governor, and said he didn\u2019t know there would be a House bill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cI don\u2019t know the politics of what\u2019s happening there,\u201d he told the newspaper, adding that he is hopeful a compromise can be reached.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sen. Cynthia Nava, D-Las Cruces, told the Sun-News she doesn\u2019t see why agricultural workers should be exempt, saying they are \u201cthe people most in need of this measure.\u201d That puts her at odds with some other area Democrats who have fought hard for the exemption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Altamirano\u2019s bill next heads for the Senate Finance Committee, and then the full Senate. Lujan\u2019s bill has been assigned to the House Labor and Human Resources and Business and Industry committees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that Democrats may again fight with Democrats on the issue of raising the minimum wage. The issue isn\u2019t whether to do it: It\u2019s how it should be done. The Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting this morning that the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee on Wednesday endorsed Senate President Pro Tem Ben Altamirano\u2019s bill. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}