Welcome to Greensboro. Now play nice and give Alma her issue back.
House Speaker Jim Black may have his troubles as of late, but his money is apparently still good in Greensboro.
A two-sentence missive from Rep. Early Jones (D-Greensboro) says that Black along with State Treasurer Richard Moore will be in town to help Jones raise money for the upcoming 2006 campaign. (Before I get asked: the shindig is from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Tuscana Cuisine on East Market Street tonight.)
No word of any "Black-out" protests, which have dogged the Speaker at some recent fund-raising events.
Gee, I wonder if Rep. Alma Adams (D-Greensboro) will be there? And if she is, do you think Moore will apologize for cutting in on her dance with the minimum wage?
Moore is a likely candidate for governor in 2008 and made a big splash earlier this month when he said he supported raising the minimum wage by $1. For background on that click here.
Were I Adams, I might be asking Moore, "So, um, where exactly were you last year when I was pushing this issue? Or the year before that? Or the year before."
Whether you agree with a wage increase or not, give Adams props for tilting at this particular windmill since the mid-1990s. This year, after a rather torturous ride through parliamentary hell, a minimum wage increase passed the House. Its prospects in the more business-interest-friendly Senate are currently assessed at less-than-promising, but the beginning of the short session in May is still a long way off.
Well, after toiling in the trenches on this issue, Adams gets to watch her issue get swept right up in the 2008 governor's race. (Heck, Moore even started up a cute little website to tout the issue: http://www.onedollarmore.blogspot.com/.)
The funniest and possibly most dead-on comment about Moore calling for a minimum wage hike comes from Carter Wrenn, over at talkingaboutpolitics.com
Here's a prediction: However much Mr. Moore comes out for raising the minimum wage the other so-called ‘blue-chip’ Democrat candidate for Governor, Lt. Governor Beverly Perdue, will be for more. That’ll make her more populist and more moral. (Click here to read the whole post.)
Of course, it’d really be funny if Moore and Perdue went all-out to stake their claim to the issue and a wage hike of some ilk ended up passing the General Assembly this year. All that speechifying and chicken dinners would go for naught. You think the Senate would agree to pass the bill just for the comedic value?
And hey folks, don't go getting all sweaty over the 2008 gubernatorial election yet. We've still got a whole legislative election cycle to mess with this year. Which, neatly enough, brings up back to Black and Moore visiting Greensboro.
I've written a couple stories about local Dems standing by their man Black despite his troubles. (Find those (here and here.) From the local delegation, Jones has been just about the most outspoken of the Speaker's supporters. If Black stays in power, one would imagine that Jones' loyalty could be rewarded.
On the other hand, if things go south for the Speaker, what might that mean for Jones? (Yeah, that’s an open-ended question there. Y'all discuss.)
Comments (1)
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It's nice of the speaker to help Jones raise money for the upcoming campaign, in which Jones is likely to have NO opposition. And Jones quite openly takes the view that campaign funds exist to supplement the low pay that legislators receive.
Posted on January 13, 2006 2:15 PM