Rep. Mark Cohen has commented on my last entry on the minimum wage issue, criticizing my call for civil disobedience on this issue. As much as I admire his leadership on the minimum wage issue, I have to disagree with Representative Cohen about some matters. And I want to elevate this disagreement to a separate blog entry because it illustrates many of the arguments I have been making in my not yet complete series of posts on the future of progressive politics in Pennsylvania.
The Minimum Wage Coalition
Rep. Cohen tells us to support for the Minimum Wage Coalition rather than engage in civil disobedience. Let me make clear that the decision to consider using direct action or civil disobedience as a tactic in our fight to raise the minimum wage was made not by me, but by the members of the Minimum Wage Coalition, including representatives of a number of important labor unions, who have spend many years lobbying in Harrisburg. I share the view of these long time activists that the time has come for some more militant action on the minimum age issue.
How to Spin the Minimum Wage Issue
Rep. Cohen is concerned that the “skilled propogandists” of the Republican Party will turn any direct action against our cause by changing the subject from an increase in the minimum wage to violation of the law. My question to him is whether Democrats in Harrisburg are really lacking in the communication skills to counter the Republican. When seventy to eighty percent of the citizens of Pennsylvania support an increase in the minimum wage, and the Senate leadership is not allowing a vote on the issue, is this issue really so hard to spin?
Should we engage in civil disobedience, then, our cause will be democracy itself. Pennsylvanians favor the minimum wage. They also know that the minimum wage is broadly popular. These same citizens also have their well founded doubts about how well our legislative leaders represent the public. So, our argument will be that direct action is necessary because our legislative leaders are thwarting the will of the people by not allowing a vote on the issue. This is an argument even moderately conservative Republicans can understand.
We Need More Public Attention To Our Fight
It has been very difficult to get citizens aroused about and the press interested in the minimum wage issue. The only time we have gotten much attention by the press was when we tied the minimum wage issue to the legislative pay raise. (This, by the way, was another tactical move that was not approved of by Rep. Cohen.) Should we resort to direct action, our aim will be to increase the pressure legislators to demand a vote on increasing the minimum wage.
The Lack of Outside Leadership Among Democratic Politicians
Civil disobedience would not be necessary if the Minimum Wage Coalition had the resources to send organizers through out the state or run advertisements in every Republican House and Senate district. But we are a very poorly funded organization that is lead in part by people who, with one or two exceptions, are not well paid themselves or who are, like myself, volunteers. Why is it that the politicians who champion an increase in the minimum wage, have not seen fit to help us raise the money we need to build our organization? Where are the Governor, the Democratic legislative leaders, and the leaders of the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania? Why do our political leaders—some of whom are noted fundraisers—ignore the critical strategy of building an “outside” movement to complement their political maneuvering “inside” Harrisburg?
Does Civil Disobedience Hurt Democrats
As for Rep. Cohen’s claim that civil disobedience leads to defeat for Democrat politicians, all I can say is that the first thing one learns as a political scientist is that a correlation is not the same thing as a cause. I see no reason to believe that the use of civil disobedience in the sixties lead to defeat for Democrats or that Joe Hoeffel’s civil disobedience lead to his unfortunate defeat in 2004. There are other causes of these defeats that were more important than revulsion against the use of civil disobedience. And I also remind everyone that one of the reasons Democrats lost seats in the 1966 congressional election was the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. These laws would not have been enacted without civil disobedience. And if their passage lead to defeat for some Democrats in Congress, that was a price well worth paying.