Minimum wage's red herring

State Sen. Dave Hansen gets it right when he says that there would be no issue about local governments raising the minimum wage if Republicans had just done the right thing and passed the recommendation of the non-partisan minimum wage advisory council, raising the statewide wage rate.

Local governments began passing their own minimum wage ordinances only after the GOP refused to do the right thing. The local actions were designed to put some pressure on the legislature, and that appears to be working. In fact, it's working so well that the GOP is insisting that local governments be pre-empted from raising the minimum wage on their own.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing.

Or, as Hansen describes it, a red herring