Green keeps his priorities straight

Rep, Mark Green missed six votes in the House Monday and Tuesday, when he was back in Wisconsin raking in somewhere between $600,000 and $1-million in donations from special interests and fat cats at an event with George Bush.

Fortunately, Bush gave him a lift back to DC on Air Force One, so that Green could be there in time on Wednesday to vote twice against raising the federal minimum wage.

Green claims -- as he does on all sorts of issues -- that they were meaningless "procedural" votes. But procedural votes are what the majority Republicans use to keep bills from being considered. These were two votes against raising the minimum wage, no matter how Green tries to deny it.

Apparently, none of those $1,000 to $10,000 donors at the Hilton on Tuesday told him they thought the minimum wage was too low.

It's just one more example of Green being way out of the mainstream. There is broad support for minimum wage increases. Don't be surprised if you hear more about this in the next few months. As the Capital Times says in an editorial:

The factor that Wisconsin voters will have to weigh this fall as they make their choice in the gubernatorial race is the certainty that the politician who has regularly opposed minimum wage hikes as a member of Congress will not suddenly become a friend to low-wage workers as governor.

If Mark Green is elected governor, Wisconsin's low-wage workers will run the very real risk of having no allies in positions of power in a Republican-controlled State Capitol, just as they currently have no friends in positions of power in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Bet Greenie will be there for the good stuff next week when, Congressional Quarterly reports:

The House Republican leadership plans to continue promoting its election-year “American values agenda” next week with floor votes on two more hot-button social issues — gay marriage and the “Under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Wouldn't want to miss that.

UPDATE: Green does it again on minumum wage.