Doyle could kill Madison minimum wage hike

By Abby Peterson

State Editor

Madison City Council attempts to raise the city’s minimum wage may be forever unraveled if Gov. Jim Doyle signs a bill into law that would prohibit localities from enacting a higher minimum wage than the statewide limit.

The Senate passed the bill Tuesday along largely partisan lines, leaving it up to Doyle to determine if minimum-wage limits must be applied uniformly across Wisconsin or if local governments can go above and beyond the statewide wage.

Although the governor has not made a final decision on the matter as of yet, his press secretary, Dan Leistikow, said Doyle believes in a statewide minimum wage to ensure “all communities will benefit.”

“If there was a higher state minimum wage, it might not be necessary for localities to go beyond that,” Leistikow said.

A taskforce Doyle employed to consider a minimum-wage increase for the state recently released recommendations suggesting Wisconsin raise its minimum wage to $6.50 an hour. However, Leistikow indicated that if the state Legislature rejects an increase for the statewide minimum wage, then local governments independently pursuing a hike would be legitimate.

“If the legislature blocks the statewide minimum-wage [hike], then it might be necessary for localities to raise it on their own,” he said.

Democrats in both the Assembly and the Senate sent Doyle a letter urging him to veto the proposal. The Assembly letter labeled the legislation a “one-size-fits-all” bill that is “partisan, anti-labor and anti-local control.”

“One can’t ignore the basic economic reality that the living wage for a family of four in Madison or Milwaukee is significantly higher than the living wage in Peshtigo or Elroy,” the letter read.

Sen. Fred Risser (D ? Madison) said the bill specifically targets the city of Madison’s efforts to raise the minimum wage here.

“It’s an anti-Madison bill. It would never have come up if Madison were not working to increase its minimum wage,” Risser said.

Risser attributed the bill’s passage to Republican legislators being influenced by “business interests” who hope to ensure that any increase Madison enacted would be null and void.

“They have certain business interests that do not want any change in the minimum wage. They certainly don’t want it to raise as high as the Madison City Council wants it,” Risser said.

The Madison City Council has proposed raising the minimum wage in the city from $5.15 to $7.75 an hour and indexing the wage to the economy to account for inflation.

According to City Council president Mike Verveer, the council will take up the proposed city wage hike Tuesday in order to create a “symbolic gesture” if Doyle eventually decides to pre-empt local government on the issue.

Ald. Austin King, District 8, said the bill is an assault on the Wisconsin tradition of local control. However, though frustrated by the proposed law, he remains hopeful Doyle will follow the footsteps of Democrats in the legislature and oppose the bill.

“The way I see it, I assume that Jim Doyle is both intelligent and a Democrat. If he votes for the bill, he will prove me wrong on at least one count,” King said.