PAGE 2 | November 16, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
...A night of wins for working people
(International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X)
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House Speaker Paul Ryan. Bryce originally
ran to challenge Ryan, but in April, Ryan
announced that he wouldn’t seek re-elec-
tion. In the end, Ryan’s former staffer Brian
Steila won the Republican-leaning district
by 55 to 42 percent, after a well-funded
campaign that skipped over bread-and-
butter policy issues and focused instead on
Bryce’s past arrest for DUII and failure to pay
child support.
A ‘RED FOR ED’ WAVE IN TEACHER
STRIKE STATES Record numbers of
teachers ran for office in Republican-led
states where teachers struck for higher
pay earlier this year, and on election
night, some of them won. A least 19
current or former teachers won election
to the Arizona Legislature (out of 51 who
ran); at least 21 won election to the
Arizona Legislature (out of 58); and at
least 10 won election to the Kentucky
Legislature (out of 36). However, teacher-
union-backed Democratic candidates fell
well short of winning governors races in
Oklahoma and Arizona, and control of the
state legislatures remained in Republican
hands in West Virginia and Arizona.
Arizona voters did overwhelmingly reject
a ballot measure that would have
expanded a program that allows families
to pay for private school tuition with
public funds.
BALLOT MEASURES
AROUND THE NATION
Voters in Republican-leaning
states rejected the Republican
agenda: They voted to raise the
minimum wage and expand
Medicaid. But voters around the
country also rejected measures to
tax the rich and tobacco, put a
price on carbon, repeal a ban on
rent control, and set nurse
staffing ratios.
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE Arkansas
and Missouri voters passed big increases in
the minimum wage. Arkansas’ wage will
rise to $11 by 2021, affecting one quarter
of the state’s workers. Missouri’s will rise to
$12 over the next five years, lifting
standards for more than 675,000 workers.
EXPAND MEDICAID Voters in Idaho,
Nebraska and Utah — heavily
Republican states that Trump won easily
in 2016 — approved citizen-led ballot
measures to sign on to Obamacare's
expansion of Medicaid. Medicaid — the
government health insurance program
for low-income Americans — has always
combined state and federal funding, with
the feds historically paying on average 57
percent. The Affordable Care Act of 2010
(popularly known as Obamacare)
expanded Medicaid eligibility to all
Americans up to 138 percent of the
federal poverty level, and the federal
government paid 100 percent of the cost
for those newly eligible, an amount that
drops gradually to 90 percent in 2020.
But a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
made the Medicaid expansion optional
for the states, and 17 Republican-
dominated states refused to take part in
it, turning away billions of dollars in
federal aid and leaving millions of low-
income Americans in those states
uninsured. That’s what voters in
repudiated on Nov. 6 in the three states
where they had the chance. As a result,
an estimated 302,000 individuals in
Idaho, Nebraska and Utah will now be
eligible for Medicaid. In Montana,
though, voters narrowly rejected a $2 a
pack cigarette tax to pay the state’s
portion of the Medicaid expansion, which
covers 96,000 people. Montana’s
Republican legislature expanded
Medicaid in 2015, but only for a four-year
period that ends next July, and they
haven’t come up with the 10 percent
match to extend it. Hospitals stepped up
and sponsored ballot measure I-185 as
one solution. Tobacco companies spent
$17 million opposing it — in a state with
fewer than 200,000 smokers.
END FORCED PRISON LABOR Colorado
voters approved Amendment A by nearly
65 percent, ending a provision in the
Colorado state constitution that says
prisoners can be forced to do unpaid
labor as part of their punishment.
TAX THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS TO
PAY FOR SCHOOLS? NO Colorado voters
rejected Amendment 73 by a 55-to-45
percent margin. Backed by unions, the
measure would have raised $1.6 billion
for schools by increasing income taxes to
5 and 8.25 percent for people earning
above $150,000 per year, and increasing
the corporate tax rate to 6 percent. The
state currently has a flat tax rate of 4.63
percent on all incomes, personal or
corporate. Meanwhile, voters in North
Carolina actually lowered the top income
tax rate.
CAP INTEREST ON PAYDAY LOANS
Colorado Proposition 111, which passed
with 77 percent support, restricts interest
on payday loans to an annual rate of 36
percent and eliminates all other finance
charges and fees.
SET NURSE-PATIENT RATIOS?
NOPE Nurse-union-backed
Massachusetts Question 1 would have
limited the number of patients hospital
nurses could be assigned. Led by the
Massachusetts Nurses Association,
measure supporters spent more than
$10.6 million but the hospital industry
spent over $26 million opposing it, and
voters rejected the measure by 70
percent.
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