What We Need Is a Raise

Plenty of tough questions were asked at Green Valley High School last Wednesday. That required Rep. Joe Heck (R-Henderson) to come up with real answers. Constituents had questions on topics ranging from gun safety to marriage equality, but those weren't all. There was one other issue that was raised... And that put Rep. Heck in a very uncomfortable position (for him).



Nevada's minimum wage now stands (for the most part) at $8.25 per hour, while the federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour. The minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation for some time, and that's meant millions of working families have had to work for poverty level earnings. And this is why most Americans (and even some conservatives) support raising the minimum wage.

Yet last Wednesday, Rep. Heck was pulling out every available "TEA" flavored scare tactic in an attempt to spin his opposition to raising the minimum wage into a more "complimentary light". Unfortunately for him, NV-03 constituents Wendy Starkweather, Esther Sass, & Lisa Muntean weren't letting him.



Rep. Heck cited the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report as evidence that a minimum wage increase would harm the economy, but he failed to mention what was actually in the CBO report. He also failed to mention how it would barely budge prices for consumers. And he failed to mention how it would lift at least 900,000 Americans out of poverty.

When Rep. Heck declared that raising the minimum wage would be "bad for business", he likely wasn't expecting a rebuttal from a local business owner. Unfortunately for him, that's what happened when NV-03 constituent & business owner Cassie Rice had a chance to speak. She explained to him and the audience what motivates her hiring decisions. (Hint: It's not the minimum wage.)



Actually, what affects hiring decisions the most is the simplest of economic rules: supply & demand. Is there demand for a company's products? And is that company demanding more workers? Those influence corporate hiring decisions far greater than the where the minimum wage stands.

Yet in another way, the minimum wage can affect the overall economic climate. Think about this: What determines consumers' purchasing decisions the most? It ultimately comes down to how much money they have to spend. The more they can spend, the more they will buy.

This is what policy makers like Rep. Heck should take into serious consideration. By lifting at least 900,000 American workers out of poverty, that can lead to a real "bubbling up" effect of more consumers buying more products, which would mean more economic growth. And let's face it, what we need right now is more economic growth.

We know Rep. Heck's "TEA" drinking base either dismisses economic inequality as a serious problem or claims it can be solved by "right-wing social engineering". However, we also know neither of those claims is true. Economic inequality does pose a serious challenge, and it can't be solved with "right-wing social engineering".

Last Wednesday, Rep. Joe Heck was confronted by real constituents who had a real case to make for raising the minimum wage. He can deny their stories and their facts all he wants, but he can't change reality. What we seriously need right now is a raise... In the minimum wage.

What's Already on the Table

Clearly, there was plenty of action and plenty of heated conversation last night at Rep. Joe Heck's Green Valley High School town hall. The constituents who attended had plenty of questions on a number of issues.

And yes, a(nother) familiar issue came to the forefront at Green Valley High School. It's the same one that Rep. Heck said he supported one year ago. And it's the same one he claimed he was working on last August. Yet for all his talk on expanding background checks for gun purchases, he's yet to produce any meaningful action. (Sound familiar yet?)

That's why NV-03 constituent Sheila Shinno put him on the spot last night. She asked Rep. Heck why he doesn't support the bipartisan backed HR 1565 while claiming he wants to expand background checks.



Just as he did at the August town hall in Summerlin, Rep. Heck claimed he has problems with certain provisions of HR 1565. He also claimed he talked with the bill's original sponsors about a specific proposal regarding a "web portal", just as he did in August. But this time, another constituent took issue with Heck's claims.

NV-03 constituent & super activist Teresa Crawford did her homework last August when Rep. Heck talked about his objections to HR 1565. She specifically looked for more information about his "web portal" proposal". And she could find nothing. So she mentioned that last night.



She also came prepared with the facts on gun violence. Indeed, Missouri's repeal of background checks was followed by a rising murder rate in that state. And indeed, Nevada (which has nothing close to universal background checks) is the 9th deadliest state for gun violence. And there's plenty more evidence indicating that background checks work (and conversely, the loophole plagued status quo does not). So what's Rep. Heck waiting for?

Last night, he said he wants a "more holistic approach". And what would that entail? An assault weapons ban? Limits on magazine capacity? Better guidelines for safe gun storage? Better mental health care? If that's the case, then hallelujah! Go ahead and...

Oh, wait. He didn't mention any of that last night, other than some passive references to mental health care and gun storage. And even then, he couldn't point to any legislation to increase mental health care funding (he's actually done the opposite by trying to repeal Obamacare) or improve gun storage standards.

And that brings us back to HR 1565 & the issue of background checks. While it's a rather modest effort to reduce gun violence, it's a badly needed first step. And Rep. Heck has repeatedly said he supports expanding background checks. So why not push forward the bill that's already on the table?

HR 1565 is already on the table. The policy it covers enjoys widespread popular support, and it can make a real difference in saving lives. We've already waited far too long for this. Why should we wait even longer for phantom legislation that never seems to materialize in real life. Why not just take what's already on the table and run with it?

No, He Can't Have It Both Ways.

We've heard this before. We've heard this so many times it's become predictable. Yet for some reason, Rep. Joe Heck (R-Henderson) keeps trying to have it both ways on comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). He says he's for it, yet does nothing to pass it.

We saw this song & dance routine again last night at Rep. Heck's Green Valley High School town hall meeting. When asked by constituents why he hasn't voted for CIR already, he reiterated his "support"... Then proceeded to offer excuses for the House's failure to address CIR.





Several constituents asked Rep. Heck about the status of CIR in the House. And from there, it quickly went downhill for him.



Apparently, we're not the only ones who remember Rep. Joe Heck's promising words on CIR exactly one year ago. And we're not the only ones who remember Rep. Heck's vote to deport DREAMers last June, as that was also brought up last night. Oh, and quite a few of the town hall attendees also remembered Rep. Joe Heck's renewed call for CIR last August.

Yet later that month at another town hall meeting, Rep. Joe Heck backed away and promoted a "step by step approach". Yet despite his promises that would result in overall CIR, the House has failed to pass any sort of immigration reform (other than the anti-CIR "Deport DREAMers" amendment mentioned above). That's why NV-03 constituent Ron Nelsen asked him to just sign a discharge petition for HR 15 already.



Last night, Rep. Heck dared the audience to name any House Republican who's done more for CIR than he has. Off the top of our heads, we can name three: Jeff Denham (R-California), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), and David Valadao (R-California). Unlike Heck, they already agreed to cosponsor HR 15. And if they, Heck, and 20 more House Republicans sign a discharge petition for HR 15, they can then pass CIR once & for all.

They can't say the votes aren't there. After all, CIR arch nemesis Steve King (R-Iowa) admitted earlier this month that the votes exist to pass CIR.

And in a shocking turn of events, even Senator Dean Heller has broken his silence on the House's failure to pass CIR. The Reno Gazette Journal's Ray Hagar caught Senator Heller speaking with CIR advocates in Reno yesterday. And at that gathering, Senator Heller clearly indicated that the House has the votes to pass CIR.

So what's holding it up? Last night, Heck attempted to deflect blame onto President Obama, CIR advocates, the Senate (Hear that, Senator Dean Heller?), and whoever else he could think of. But ultimately, it's always been House Republicans' choice to kill CIR. Heck, they even decided to kill their own "principles for immigration reform"! So there's no one else Rep. Heck can blame.

Funny enough, Rep. Heck finally declared after a night of frustrating questions, "You can't have it both ways!" He's quite correct on that. And he needs to start taking his own advice. He can't claim he's for CIR, then stand with his "leadership" and make excuses for their decision to kill CIR. If he truly wants reform, then he must make the effort to pass it. He simply can't have it both ways.

Heck Pulls Back on Guns

Yesterday morning, we saw fireworks. Rep. Joe Heck went on KDWN's "Alan Stock Show" and agreed with Stock calling Gabby Gifforda a "prop" as both were decrying President Obama's push for gun violence prevention.





At last night's town hall in Old Henderson, on the other hand, he was singing a very different tune. Last night, he actually started answering questions his constitutents have had on gun safety. And not only that, but he also suddenly found some common ground with President Obama on this matter.





However, there was a catch. While Heck was willing to extend an olive branch on universal background checks and curbing illegal gun trafficking, he was not willing to do the same on the Assault Weapons Ban and ban on high-capacity magazines.



Even though last week's KLAS/SUSA poll showed 57% of Nevadans support a ban on military grade assault weapons (and only 33% opposed), Heck didn't want to budge on this. He even claimed that the previous federal Assault Weapons Ban (1994-2004) didn't work. Unfortunately for Heck, the data on hand shows otherwise.

These so-called “external features” not only themselves allow for faster rates of fire and other more lethal uses of the guns, but also serve as effective proxy definitions for the sort of weapons best suited to kill people as efficiently as possible. The definition of “assault weapon” in the new federal ban proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) with respect to semi-automatic rifles and pistols is focused on two kinds of each. The rifles are civilian equivalents of “assault rifles,” the main class of rifle used by modern militaries. “Civilian” versions are distinguished only by their inability to fire either automatically or in bursts without a conversion kit. The pistols have features that make them liable to be converted to full automatic versions (that is, into submachine guns) or otherwise enhance their lethality (e.g., allow for faster rate of fire).

[The new Assault Weapons Ban] picks out those sorts of weapons in two ways. First, it bans specific guns (like the AR-15s used by James Holmes in Aurora and Adam Lanza in Newtown) that are particularly deadly. Many of these guns are civilian equivalents of military assault rifles, because — as assault rifle expert C.J. Chivers puts it — these guns were “conjured to form solely for the task of allowing men to more efficiently kill other men” because they are “smaller, lighter in weight, more tactically versatile and require a lighter per-man effective ammunition load than the infantry rifles that preceded them.” The Feinstein provisions, unlike in the 1994 federal ban, specify that “altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon thereof” are also banned, so taking out a single screw and calling the weapon something different would not allow manufacturers to skirt the ban. The second provision defines generic features — like barrel shrouds that allow for faster fire or (for pistols) magazines outside the pistol grip —and bans any gun that has more than one of them and a detachable magazine (the old ban allowed a maximum of two features, making it easier to skirt).

These aren’t merely cosmetic features: they’re the ones that mark guns optimized for effective performance in combat-style situations. They also mark guns easily convertible to full automatic fire, like the TEC-9 submachine guns once favored in gang killings. One such kit is fully legal, despite the 1934 National Firearms Act banning the possession of automatic weapons without a permit. The kit produced by the company Slide Fire product allows you to turn your AR or AK series assault rifle into a rapid-fire machine without technically running afoul of the federal definition of “machine gun.”

The notion that assault rifles are similar in caliber to hunting rifles, and hence no more dangerous, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny for similar reasons. As the California Attorney General’s office explains, “Caliber has no bearing on a weapon’s status as a series weapon and should be disregarded when making an identification. For example, upper receiver conversion kits are available to convert almost any AR series weapon into .45 ACP, .40 S&W, 7.62 X 39 mm, 9 mm, 10 mm, or .223 caliber.” [...]

There is evidence that the 1994 federal ban saved lives despite a series of loopholes closed in the Feinstein bill and several state bans. Though there isn’t reliable data on the number of people killed by assault weapons in the United States, there is strong evidence from the Mexican border that both California’s assault weapons ban the federal assault weapon ban lowered the homicide rate. The clearest comes in a 2012 academic paper that treated the expiration of the federal assault weapon ban in 2004 as a natural experiment —California still had its assault weapon ban, but Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona didn’t have equivalents. The authors tracked homicides and weapon seizures in the Mexican provinces bordering the states, finding disproportionately lower homicide rates in provinces near California. This difference remained when other potential causes (like police presence) were accounted for, suggesting the federal and California bans had successful kept assault weapons out of the hands of cartels and other criminals. The expiration of the federal law, on this paper’s model, has gotten roughly 239 people killed on the Mexican border per year since 2004. This is consistent with another paper that found “the expiration of the AWB is responsible for at least 16.4 percent of the increase in the homicide rate in Mexico between 2004 and 2008.”

The 1994 ban, according to a Department of Justice review, also appears to have caused the percentage of crimes involving assault weapons in some major US cities to drop from 72 percent to 17 percent.

Even with its loopholes and other flaws, the 1994 federal ban actually did work to a large extent. And the new proposed ban goes a long way to fix those past flaws.

What's the purpose of civilian ownership & use of military grade assault weapons? And why are high-capacity magazines needed? How are these fit for "recreational use"? Heck didn't really answer that. And his spin falls flat once the facts are brought out.

Otherwise, it seems like Heck at least wants to be seen as "moderate" and "reasonable". So at least he's now open to background checks, curbing trafficking, and even lifting the ban on CDC researching gun violence. So maybe there's a chance of something getting through this Congress? Heck seems amenable to at least some measures, but it remains to be seen if his House G-O-TEA leaders allow a floor vote on anything... And if Alan Stock and the rest of the Nevada "tea party" will tolerate this talk from Heck.

Health Care: Dina Titus IS Doing a Town Hall Meeting, After All

So she is doing one...

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus will do this week what most Nevada lawmakers ably avoided during the long hot summer of Tea Party protests: She will host an open town hall forum on health care on Monday.

The freshmen congresswoman had publicly promised her constituents in August that she would return to her Southern Nevada district in fall with a full-fledged forum.

Titus is keeping good on her word with an event from 7-8 p.m. on Monday at Temple Ner Tamid, 55 North Valle Verde Drive in Henderson.

Yes, questions will be taken and answered.

The one we’re wondering is: Has the public mood cooled on health care reform or will fall prove as hot as summer?

Most Nevadans support health care reform and want a strong public option, so I hope Dina remembers this and ignores the tiny-but-loud teabagger minority as the rest of us ask her to get the job done. I also hope progressives remember to show up to ask so that it doesn't look like another teabagger hanging.