NC Democratic lawmakers push paid leave, minimum wage hikes
The North Carolina Legislative Building in Raleigh. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)
North Carolina Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday advocated for bills proposing comprehensive paid family leave and minimum wage increases during back-to-back press conferences at the Legislative Building in Raleigh. They framed the proposals as urgent measures to ease the financial strain on workers needing time off for family and medical needs and those struggling with the cost of living.
In the first event, Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch of Wake County joined nonprofit advocates in renewing a longstanding appeal for paid leave legislation that would give North Carolina workers greater access to paid time off. Batch opened the press conference by highlighting the stark reality facing North Carolina workers: 79% of the state's workforce — approximately 4 million people —have no paid leave through their jobs. She shared a heart-wrenching story of a mother forced to leave her premature child in the hospital to continue working, returning to the neonatal intensive care unit after hours and spending each night there before going home.
'In a society that is so well-resourced, it is outrageous that we don't provide paid leave for individuals and that is something that absolutely needs to change,' said Batch, a sponsor of the NC Paid Family Leave Insurance Act (Senate Bill 480).
About 20% of U.S. workers do not have access to paid sick leave, and 73% lack paid family leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. is among a small number of countries worldwide that do not require employers to offer paid sick leave or paid maternity leave.
In North Carolina, while some workers have access to unpaid leave due to the Family and Medical Leave Act, many are ineligible, and many more cannot afford to take time off without pay. Senate Bill 480 would allow workers up to 12 weeks of paid time off for major life events, such as caring for newborns or tending to sick relatives.
The proposal modeled loosely on Social Security, would be funded through small weekly contributions from employers and employees. This approach aims to make paid leave accessible to everyone, including small business owners, self-employed workers, and part-time employees.
Rep. Laura Budd (D-Mecklenburg), a small business owner and mother, explained how the current system disadvantages small and medium businesses competing for talent against larger corporations that can offer comprehensive benefits. 'This bill helps level the playing field,' Budd said.
For almost two decades, legislation to allow North Carolina workers to earn paid sick time has been introduced but has not received a committee hearing in the Republican-controlled legislature. Advocates say this lack of action leaves many working North Carolinians without paid time off to recover from illness, care for sick loved ones, or access preventive health care.
'If you've heard it once, you've heard it a hundred times,' Batch said. 'There are so many families who are struggling with regards with just being able to make ends meet. Most of them are living paycheck–to-paycheck and they don't have the ability to take any leave.'
Later in the morning, another group of Democratic lawmakers held a second press conference to unveil twin bills aimed at raising the state's hourly and tipped minimum wages, which have not changed since 2009. The proposed Economic Security Act (House Bill 339, Senate Bill 326) would raise North Carolina's minimum wage to $22 per hour. It would also phase out the lower minimums that employers can pay restaurant workers and others who regularly get tips — $2.13 per hour. A separate measure, the Fair Minimum Wage Act (House Bill 353), proposes a more gradual increase, lifting the state's minimum wage to $18 per hour by 2030.
'The people of North Carolina work hard and put their all into everything that they do,' said Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-Chatham, Durham), a sponsor of the Senate wage bill. 'They deserve to be paid every single dime that they are worth. They are worth more than what they are getting today.'
The proposal also includes provisions for paid sick days, workplace safety protections, and reinstating the Earned Income Tax Credit. 'More than half of Americans are just one paycheck away from homelessness,' said Murdock. 'That is unacceptable. We can and we must do better for our state.'
Both efforts face steep odds in the Republican-controlled legislature, where similar proposals have stalled for years.
But advocates stressed broader economic stakes: The NC Justice Center estimates a $15 minimum wage could inject $4.5 million into the economy, while paid leave backers argue it would reduce turnover and boost productivity.
The Democratic lawmakers promoted the bills Tuesday as part of a lobbying day for worker advocates.
'Full time minimum wage workers earn $15,000 yearly. That's a death sentence,' said Rep. Marcia Morey (D-Durham), noting the state ranks last nationally for worker conditions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Federal appeals court to hear arguments in Trump's long-shot effort to fight hush money conviction
Five months after President Donald Trump was sentenced without penalty in the New York hush money case, his attorneys will square off again with prosecutors Wednesday in one of the first major tests of the Supreme Court's landmark presidential immunity decision. Trump is relying heavily on the high court's divisive 6-3 immunity ruling from July in a long-shot bid to get his conviction reviewed – and ultimately overturned – by federal courts. After being convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Trump in January became the first felon to ascend to the presidency in US history. Even after Trump was reelected and federal courts became flooded with litigation tied to his second term, the appeals in the hush money case have chugged forward in multiple courts. A three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals – all named to the bench by Democratic presidents – will hear arguments Wednesday in one of those cases. Trump will be represented on Wednesday by Jeffrey Wall, a private lawyer and Supreme Court litigator who served as acting solicitor general during Trump's first administration. Many of the lawyers who served on Trump's defense team in the hush money case have since taken top jobs within the Justice Department. The case stems from the 2023 indictment announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, who accused Trump of falsely categorizing payments he said were made to quash unflattering stories during the 2016 election. Trump was accused of falsifying a payment to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to cover up a $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out before the 2016 election about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.) Trump was ultimately convicted last year and was sentenced without penalty in January, days before he took office. The president is now attempting to move that case to federal court, where he is betting he'll have an easier shot at arguing that the Supreme Court's immunity decision in July will help him overturn the conviction. Trump's earlier attempts to move the case to federal court have been unsuccessful. US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, nominated by President Bill Clinton, denied the request in September – keeping Trump's case in New York courts instead. The 2nd Circuit will now hear arguments on Trump's appeal of that decision on Wednesday. 'He's lost already several times in the state courts,' said David Shapiro, a former prosecutor and now a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. And Trump's long-running battle with New York Judge Juan Merchan, Shapiro said, has 'just simmered up through the system' in New York courts in a way that may have convinced Trump that federal courts will be more receptive. Trump, who frequently complained about Merchan, has said he wants his case heard in an 'unbiased federal forum.' Trump's argument hangs largely on a technical but hotly debated section of the Supreme Court's immunity decision last year. Broadly, that decision granted former presidents 'at least presumptive' immunity for official acts and 'absolute immunity' when presidents were exercising their constitutional powers. State prosecutors say the hush money payments were a private matter – not official acts of the president – and so they are not covered by immunity. But the Supreme Court's decision also barred prosecutors from attempting to show a jury evidence concerning a president's official acts, even if they are pursuing alleged crimes involving that president's private conduct. Without that prohibition, the Supreme Court reasoned, a prosecutor could 'eviscerate the immunity' the court recognized by allowing a jury to second-guess a president's official acts. Trump is arguing that is exactly what Bragg did when he called White House officials such as former communications director Hope Hicks and former executive assistant Madeleine Westerhout to testify at his trial. Hicks had testified that Trump felt it would 'have been bad to have that story come out before the election,' which prosecutors later described as the 'nail' in the coffin of the president's defense. Trump's attorneys are also pointing to social media posts the president sent in 2018 denying the Daniels hush money scheme as official statements that should not have been used in the trial. State prosecutors 'introduced into evidence and asked the jury to scrutinize President Trump's official presidential acts,' Trump's attorneys told the appeals court in a filing last month. 'One month after trial, the Supreme Court unequivocally recognized an immunity prohibiting the use of such acts as evidence at any trial of a former president.' A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. If Trump's case is ultimately reviewed by federal courts, that would not change his state law conviction into a federal conviction. Trump would not be able to pardon himself just because a federal court reviews the case. Bragg's office countered that it's too late for federal courts to intervene. Federal officials facing prosecution in state courts may move their cases to federal court in many circumstances under a 19th century law designed to ensure states don't attempt to prosecute them for conduct performed 'under color' of a US office or agency. A federal government worker, for instance, might seek to have a case moved to federal court if they are sued after getting into a car accident while driving on the job. But in this case, Bragg's office argued, Trump has already been convicted and sentenced. That means, prosecutors said, there's really nothing left for federal courts to do. 'Because final judgment has been entered and the state criminal action has concluded, there is nothing to remove to federal district court,' prosecutors told the 2nd Circuit in January. Even if that's not true, they said, seeking testimony from a White House adviser about purely private acts doesn't conflict with the Supreme Court's ruling in last year's immunity case. Bragg's office has pointed to a Supreme Court ruling as well: the 5-4 decision in January that allowed Trump to be sentenced in the hush money case. The president raised many of the same concerns about evidence when he attempted to halt that sentencing before the inauguration. A majority of the Supreme Court balked at that argument in a single sentence that, effectively, said Trump could raise those concerns when he appeals his conviction. That appeal remains pending in state court. 'The alleged evidentiary violations at President-elect Trump's state-court trial,' the Supreme Court wrote, 'can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal.'
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Kweisi Mfume is pitching an old-school approach to one of House Democrats' highest-profile jobs
Frustrated by Democrats' seniority system, Kweisi Mfume fled the House three decades ago, saying he could do more to advance civil rights from the outside. Now he's back and trying to reap the benefits of seniority at a moment when many in his party are starting to openly question it. The Baltimore native last month surprised many House colleagues by entering the wide-open race to lead Democrats on the high-profile Oversight Committee, seeking to fill the spot vacated by the sudden death of Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly. Into the void jumped a pair of young, ambitious members — Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Robert Garcia of California — as well as a close Connolly ally, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts. And then there's Mfume, who at 76 is making no bones about this being the capstone of a long career that included stints leading the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP — jobs he took back in the 1990s. 'I started a long time ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth,' Mfume joked in an interview, before describing his old-school approach to legislative relations: 'The first thing you learn is how to count votes, which has never failed me yet,' he said, adding that he would be careful not to alienate colleagues 'by doing something that causes problems for them in their district.' Rather than detail a point-by-point agenda for taking on President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, Mfume said if elected he'd convene the committee's Democrats to decide a course of action. The party, he said, can only move forward with a 'consensus.' That style stands in sharp contrast to a Democratic base that's itching for more aggressive leadership and a more visible fight with Trump — something the other candidates are clearly heeding: Garcia has tangled with the Justice Department over his criticism of Elon Musk; Crockett has broached the prospect of a Trump impeachment inquiry; and Lynch, as the panel's interim top Democrat, attempted last week to subpoena Musk during a panel hearing. The race also threatens to become a proxy fight for broader questions about age and seniority inside the Democratic Party. House Democrats ousted several aging committee leaders at the end of last Congress as they girded for a fight with the Trump administration — and many in the base were disappointed when Connolly triumphed over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. The winner is poised to lead efforts to investigate and thwart the Trump administration if Democrats can retake the House majority next year — and ride herd on a chaotic panel that in recent months has featured intense personal attacks between lawmakers and the display of nude photos. 'It's a street fight every day,' said Rep. Lateefah Simon of California when asked about the panel and what it takes to lead it. 'It's every single day being able to expose the hypocrisy of this administration and to tell the truth.' There was a time when Mfume would have been a natural choice for such a moment. First elected to Baltimore's City Council at the age of 30, he quickly butted heads with legendary Mayor William Donald Schaefer. After longtime Rep. Parren Mitchell retired, Mfume easily won the seat in 1986 and within a few years become a national figure due to his chairmanship of the CBC. Ascending to that role just as Bill Clinton was elected to the presidency, he became an important power broker, forcing key concessions in Clinton's 1993 budget and pushing the White House to restore ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. He also clashed with Clinton at times, including over his decision to pull the nomination of prominent Black legal scholar Lani Guinier to a top Justice Department post. But after Democrats lost their House majority in 1994 — and Mfume lost a quixotic bid to enter the party leadership — he decided two years later to forgo a long climb up the seniority ladder. He instead took the helm at the Baltimore-based NAACP, a job thought to better harness his skills at organizing and oratory. Former Maryland state Sen. Jill Carter said Mfume has long had the 'it factor' and 'charisma' that matters in politics. When Carter ran against Mfume in his 2020 House comeback bid, she got a reminder of how well her rival was known in the district and beyond: 'When some of my people did exit polling, they got the response, 'Oh, we love Jill but, come on, this is Kweisi.'' What's less clear is whether Mfume's reputation in Baltimore, burnished over 45 years in the public eye, makes him the man for the moment as far as his contemporary House colleagues are concerned. He's not known as a partisan brawler, and he said in the interview he doesn't intend to become one. 'There are always going to be fights and disagreements,' he said. 'It's kind of escalated in the last few years to a level that we haven't seen before. I think the main thing is to moderate and to manage the disagreements, because you're not going to cause any of them to go away. How you manage them and how they are perceived by the overall public is what makes a difference.' Mfume is leaning heavily, in fact, on the style and reputation of the man who filled the 7th District seat for the 24 years in between his House stints — the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, who served as top Democrat and then chair of Oversight during Trump's first term and is still spoken of in reverent terms inside the caucus. Mfume concedes that Cummings might have been the better communicator — he 'had a little more preacher in him than I do' — but said they share a similar lofty approach to politics. Like Cummings, he suggested prescription drug prices might be a committee priority. What Mfume is unlikely to have is the official support of the Congressional Black Caucus, a powerful force in intracaucus politics. With two members in the race — Crockett also belongs — Mfume said he does not expect a formal CBC endorsement after an interview process Wednesday. But he still expected to draw support from the bloc — especially its more senior members. Other factors complicate Mfume's candidacy. One is age: He is a year older than Connolly was when he was elected to lead Oversight Democrats last year. For those who prize seniority, Lynch has actually spent more time on the panel. And his 2004 departure from the NAACP was marred by controversy: The Baltimore Sun reported the executive committee of the group voted not to extend his contract under threat of a sexual harassment lawsuit; the NAACP later paid the woman who complained a $100,000 settlement. Mfume strenuously denied any wrongdoing, but while the episode has not emerged as a major issue in the Oversight race, some Democrats have privately expressed reservations about elevating a leader with personal baggage to potentially lead investigations of Trump. 'There's never been one person to corroborate that one allegation — not one,' Mfume said. About the payment, he said, 'I found out about it, quite frankly, after it happened.' Much of the Democratic Caucus remains undecided ahead of the June 24 secret-ballot vote. Candidates will first go before Democrats' Steering and Policy Committee, which will make a recommendation to the full caucus. 'I think that you have a situation where Mfume and Steve Lynch are getting support from folks who put seniority at top, and maybe the other two candidates would probably lean toward members who are newer, and then you got a whole host of folks that's in the middle. And I think that's where the battle is to see where they fall,' said Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.). One younger member said he was swayed by Mfume's experience. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is 48 and had weighed his own bid, said that while other candidates were compelling, the Baltimorean had a 'leg up.' 'Kweisi shows me pictures of him with Nelson Mandela,' he said. 'I was like, I'm not going to run against Nelson Mandela's best friend.'
The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
Musk voices regret for Trump feud: ‘Went too far'
Elon Musk is voicing regret for his public feud with President Trump, days after an explosive set of public attacks shattered the pair's close alliance. 'I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,' Musk wrote in an early morning post on his social media platform X on Wednesday. Musk's comments represent the tech mogul's clearest effort yet to smooth over tensions after a blowup that upended months of close coordination between the world's richest man and the world's most powerful leader. In another post on Tuesday night, Musk shared a news headline noting that his net worth had fallen more than $100 billion amid his efforts leading the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, as investors sold off shares of his car company Tesla. 'Worth it,' he wrote of the financial hit. Musk in a series of posts on X last week lambasted the president's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' in Congress, calling it a 'disgusting abomination' and slamming Republicans in the House who voted for it. The legislation is the centerpiece of Trump's legislative agenda, with the White House dismissing the billionaire's criticism that it would add trillions to the country's debt. Over the course of several hours, Musk issued rapid-fire social media posts lashing out at the bill and the president himself, saying Trump would have lost the 2024 election without his warchest, backed calls to impeach Trump and replace him with Vice President Vance, and floated forming a third party. After Trump called Musk 'crazy' and argued his former adviser was upset because the legislation he's seeking to advance in the Senate would repeal electric vehicle tax credits, the Tesla CEO responded with a terse 'Whatever.' Musk capped off his fusillade by alleging that '[Trump] is in the Epstein files,' referring to documents about the convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide in jail in 2019. 'That is the real reason they have not been made public,' Musk wrote. 'Have a nice day, DJT!' Republican lawmakers moved quickly to urge Musk and Trump to patch up their feud, arguing the pair remain aligned on many priorities. Within hours of the back-and-forth, Musk signaled a desire to deescalate, replying 'true' to a post that urged the two men to 'make peace for the benefit of our great country.' Musk's business empire has faced risks in the wake of the blowup, with his aerospace company SpaceX alone holding billions of dollars in federal contracts. Trump in the midst of the pair's feuding last week threatened to cut Musk's government contracts. The president escalated his threat in a phone interview with NBC News's Kristen Welker over the weekend, warning Musk will face 'serious consequences' if he tries to back Democratic candidates over GOP lawmakers who support his tax and spending bill. The feud has also worn on views of Musk within the GOP. A YouGov/Economist poll released Tuesday showed a drop in support for Musk among Republicans, with his net favorability sinking 20 points. The survey showed two-thirds of Republicans still view him favorably. For his part, Trump pushed to turn the page late last week, focusing instead on the economy, his legislative agenda and international issues. The White House said the president also planned to sell or give away the Tesla he purchased earlier this year. The vehicle was no longer at the White House on Tuesday, ABC News' Jonathan Karl reported. And Trump told reporters he's 'not really interested' in efforts to reconcile the duo. 'I'm not thinking about Elon Musk,' the president said over the weekend. 'I just wish him well.'
