AFSCME Legislative Highlights
Legislation Department June 30, 2006
Congress — Week ending June 30
Senate postpones action on estate tax repeal. Senate links congressional pay hike to minimum wage increase. President renews pledge to privatize Social Security. The Congress now begins its Independence Day recess and will return on Monday, July 10th. The next Weekly Report will be on Friday, July 14th.
In this issue:
Estate Tax Vote Postponed
Senate GOP leaders decided not to hold another vote on the back-door repeal of the estate tax, at least for now. Any vote on the House-passed reform measure, (H.R. 5638), will have to wait until after the July 4th recess period. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) surprised people when, in spite of his insistence that the Senate would hold yet another vote on estate tax repeal this week, he reversed himself and decided to postpone the vote until later in July. The reason for the delay? Frist apparently doesn't have the necessary 60 votes needed to shut off debate and proceed to the bill. Earlier, on June 8th, the Senate rejected a move to take up permanent repeal of the estate tax, forcing the House to reconsider its position and take up a new reform version which loses almost as much revenue as permanent repeal.
In developing the House bill, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) excluded Senate leaders and basically told the Senate they could take it or leave it, but not to send any amendments back to the House. For now the Senate has decided to leave it.
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Attacks Continue on the Renewal of the Voting Rights Act
Last week a small group of Republican lawmakers successfully prevented a strong bipartisan group of members from bringing voting rights legislation to the floor of the House. The legislation, the " Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006" (H.R. 9) was scheduled for a floor vote last week when Congressmen Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Charles Norwood (R-GA) and Dan Lungren (R-CA) forced the Republican leadership to cancel the vote. As a result, Congress will leave Washington this week for the July 4th recess without voting on this critically needed legislation. Unfortunately, the delay in a House vote has resulted in the Senate delaying its vote also.
Efforts to kill the legislation continued this week in the House when another opponent of the legislation, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2007 Science, State, Justice, Commerce spending bill. That amendment would have stripped the funding that is necessary to enforce the language assistance requirement in the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which helps ensure that all Americans, even those who live in areas with large populations of non-English speaking citizens, have the ability to cast an informed ballot by offering translations of non-partisan voter information materials and ballots. AFSCME, working with a number of organizations in the progressive community, successfully helped to defeat the amendment which failed by a vote of 167-254.
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Senate Leader Says No Pay Hike for Congress Until the Minimum Wage is Increased and House Democrats Again Attempt Wage Hike Amendment
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that Senate Democrats would halt pay raises for lawmakers from going into effect until Congress acts to increase the minimum wage. The minimum wage has not been raised since 1997, while lawmakers have raised their own pay by $31,600 in that time period. More than 40 Democrats support Reid's position on the minimum wage, a sufficient number to prevent GOP leaders from overcoming filibusters on various bills.
On the other side of the Capitol, House Democrats tried to attach a minimum wage amendment to yet another spending bill (H.R. 5672) that funds the departments of Commerce, Justice, and State. The House Rules Committee, with a majority of Republican members, refused to permit the Democrats from offering their minimum wage amendment. An amendment that would increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over two years was attached to the spending bill (H.R. 5638) that funds the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education in the Appropriations Committee. The minimum wage amendment, among other things, has caused GOP leaders to put off floor consideration of the spending bill. House Democrats have vowed to continue to raise the minimum wage issue until the Labor-HHS bill is brought to the floor. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) repeated his earlier statement that the House will have to "deal with" the minimum wage issue this year".
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Bush Renews Commitment to Privatize Social Security
In a speech delivered this week, President Bush reiterated his commitment to continue pressing forward with changes to Social Security every year until he leaves office although he is likely to hold off a renewed push until after the November elections since privatizing Social Security remains highly unpopular with the American public.
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GOP Plan to Undermine Social Security Through the Line-Item Veto
This week, President Bush called on the Senate to give him line-item veto power and use it as a back-door way to privatize Social Security. Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH), with the support of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) proposed granting an unelected commission the authority to cut Social Security and other entitlement programs including Medicare, if the deficit reaches an agreed upon percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
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House Judiciary Committee Approves New Corporate Tax Loopholes
The House Judiciary Committee approved, by voice vote, the "Business Activity Tax Simplification Act of 2005" (H.R. 1956), which would significantly restrict states and localities from taxing business activities and reduce jurisdictions' tax revenues by up to $10 billion annually. The bill would create a higher hurdle for jurisdictions to establish the economic "nexus" needed for them to impose taxes by implementing a "physical presence" requirement for businesses. This "physical presence" standard is far tougher than current law's "substantial presence". While current tax restrictions for "nexus" only apply to the sale of goods, this bill would extend the restrictions to the sale of services and intangibles. While current guidelines for "nexus" only restrict states from imposing a corporate income tax, this bill would expand these restrictions to other business taxes, including Washington's Business and Occupations Tax and Michigan's Single Business Tax. It is unclear when the full House will consider this legislation.
In the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has introduced a similar bill (S. 2721), with five Republican cosponsors. There has been no action in the Senate.
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Senate Panel Cuts Funds for First Responders
This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee cleared a spending bill for the Homeland Security Department, cutting funding to state and local governments for first responders. The bill cuts homeland security preparedness and local law enforcement terrorism prevention grants by $100 million. Grants to high threat urban areas were cut by $20 million. The bill provides grants to local fire fighters at current funding levels, contrary to the President's proposal to cut these grants by $362 million.
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GOP Leaders Continue to Work on Government-Gutting Sunset Commission Bill
House GOP leaders continue to work on drafting a bill to establish a federal sunset commission. The commission would be charged with reviewing most federal programs and agencies to determine whether they should be terminated, continued, consolidated or changed in some other way. Based on earlier versions of the bill, the commission would conduct its reviews behind closed doors, without input from the public. The commission's recommendations would be packaged into a single bill that would go to the House and Senate under "fast track" procedures. Such procedures would prohibit Members of Congress from making any changes to the recommendations. The entire package, which could include recommendations for hundreds of programs and laws, would be presented for a single up or down vote. By packaging the recommendations in a single, unchangeable bill, proponents hope to ram through unpopular changes that would weaken regulations and eliminate federal programs that fund the jobs of AFSCME members in federal, state and local government.
The Senate Budget Committee has already approved legislation, over the objections of Democrats on the Committee, which includes a provision to establish a sunset commission. House GOP leaders state that they expect to introduce their bill in July.
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Senate Committee Approves Telecom Bill with Ban on Internet Taxes and Weak "Net Neutrality"
The Senate Commerce Committee voted 15-7 to approve a major Telecommunications bill, which includes several provisions troubling to AFSCME. The bill, entitled, "Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunity Reform Act", is controversial and needs to overcome numerous political obstacles to get to the Senate floor. The House already voted 321-101 to approve related legislation.
Many public interest organizations support the concept of "Net Neutrality" to ensure broadband providers, including cable and telephone corporations, must operate their networks in a non-discriminatory way. This would prevent large profitable cable and telecom firms from charging higher rates to some users than others. Unfortunately, the Committee voted 11-11 to defeat Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-ME) "Net Neutrality" amendment. Separately, the Committee voted 19-3 to approve Sen. Tom Allen's (R-VA) amendment which would permanently ban government from taxing internet services. The current ban expires in October 2007.
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House Democrats Introduce Proposal to Fix Medicare Drug Program
House Democrats introduced the "Prescription for Change" which includes key improvements to the Medicare prescription drug program. Their plan requires Medicare to negotiate prices with the drug companies, using the cost savings to help close the "donut hole". It would allow seniors to choose a plan directly administered by Medicare and extends the enrollment deadline to December 31st without penalty.
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House Approves Amendments to Increase Funding for Justice Programs
The House approved amendments to the FY 2007 appropriations for Science-State-Justice-Commerce (H.R. 5672), that would increase funding for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants program. Two amendments added $25 million and $50 million to Byrne, with an offset from Census Bureau funding. In a separate amendment an additional $2 million was provided for the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants program for a total of $77 million.
The House Appropriations Committee recommended $558 million for the Justice Assistance Program. In addition, another amendment passed that increased funding by $10 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) that reimburses states for the incarceration of illegal aliens who commit crimes in the state.
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House Approves Amendment Giving Federal Employees Contracting Appeal Rights
On June 28th, the House passed the Science, State, Justice, Commerce spending bill that would provide $60.2 billion in fiscal 2007 for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State as well as various science and other related agencies. An amendment by Reps. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) and Walter Jones (R-NC) and supported by AFSCME was approved by voice vote that would provide federal employees the same rights that contractors currently have to appeal agencies contracting out decisions to the General Accounting Office.
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