POLITICS
 Sununu's minimum-wage stance suspect
Senator's vote undercuts his voiced support of women-run businesses By Shir Haberman
Published: March 2007
In the weird topsy-turvy world of Washington, D.C., politics, motivations are not always clear. Amendments to proposed legislation that may sometimes seem beneficial to some constituents might actually be attempts to undercut the viability of the original legislation.
That may have been the case with an amendment by New Hampshire's junior Republican senator, John Sununu, to the bill designed to raise the federal minimum wage from its current level of $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over the course of several years.
In January, Sununu proposed an amendment to minimum wage legislation that would bolster support for women's small-business centers in Portsmouth and across the country. Sununu's measure aims to make funding available for successful centers that have thrived under the federal Small Business Administration program that funds them, but which might have to close without continued matching federal assistance.
"Women's business centers are an incubator for women entrepreneurs nationwide, providing invaluable training and educational resources for businesswomen and those seeking to start their own businesses," said Sununu. "Portsmouth's Women's Business Center, which served over 1,300 clients during the past year, is a great example of the potential that WBCs have to support women and small business in a community.
"The amendment I introduced would ensure that high-performing WBCs, such as in Portsmouth, are able to continue their work by lifting restrictions that prevent them from applying for federal funding after a period of 10 years," the senator said.
Certainly the goal of the amendment is admirable. WBCs have provided businesswomen seeking to start, expand or improve businesses with a variety of programs, including business counseling; specialized training; microlending; credit and loan packaging assistance; networking opportunities, and outreach to economically and socially disadvantaged women.
Under current law, WBCs receive federal funds through an initial five-year program and are eligible to receive sustainability grants for an additional five years. WBCs in their final year of eligibility (so-called "graduating centers") risk the threat of closure as they transition to operating without federal funding.
Sununu's amendment would:
Create a three-year competitive grant program for graduating WBCs.
Provide graduating centers between $90,000 and $150,000 in matching federal funds per fiscal year for operating expenses and leverage to raise private-sector dollars.
Fund existing WBCs through the current program's funding, therefore creating no additional cost to taxpayers.
Ellen Fineberg, executive director of the Women's Business Center in Portsmouth, said she was pleased with Sununu's amendment.
"The legislation proposed by Senator Sununu and his Senate colleagues will allow for bipartisan support of the Small Business Administration's services to women entrepreneurs through women's business centers nationally," she was reported as saying in a Jan. 24 press release issued by Sununu's office. "Statistics show that over the past decade New Hampshire has advanced to seventh nationally in the growth rate of privately held, women-owned firms.
"I could not be more pleased with Senator Sununu's initiative to ensure funding sustains the New Hampshire center in our second decade of work promoting women's business ownership in the Granite State," Fineberg said.
However, when the vote on the minimum wage bill that came up from the House, which simply increased the minimum wage and did not include either Sununu's amendment or the state's senior senator, Sen. Judd Gregg's desire to protect businesses from the financial repercussions of the raise, both senators voted against it.
The Senate voted 54-43 in favor of a proposal that came out of the House to increase the wage from $5.15 to $7.25 without a tax relief package, but that was six votes short of the necessary 60 to keep it going.
Sununu said he voted with the minority to keep alive his amendment to preserve funding for the women's business centers.
"I was protecting New Hampshire's interests in voting as I did, and will continue to do so," he said through his office. "I have voted before for legislation that combines an increase in the minimum wage with provisions that help New Hampshire's small businesses."
However, Sununu's real motives remain in question.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee noted that Sununu has repeatedly voted against raising the minimum wage.
"I do not support raising the minimum wage," Sununu reportedly said in November 2005.
"Before this most recent debate began, Sununu had already voted at least four times against raising the minimum wage, despite the fact that the minimum wage has not increased since 1996," the DSCC press release said. "Because of the lack of action by Republicans during their control of Congress, the real value of the minimum wage has fallen to a 51-year low."
Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy contends Sununu's vote spells disaster for an increase in the minimum wage this session. Kennedy said of the amendment Sununu supported, "Effectively it eliminates the minimum wage."
So, given that the U.S. House passed a minimum-wage increase bill as part of its "first 100 hours" agenda, the question has to be asked: Is Sununu's stand based on principle and his honest feeling that it is worthwhile to potentially sacrifice an increase in the minimum wage for some extra money for women's business centers, or is it simply an excuse to continue his opposition to an increase in wages for the working poor of this country under cover of doing something constructive for women-owned businesses?
In the Alice-In-Wonderland world of congressional politics, we may never know the real truth -- but we can certainly have our suspicions.
Shir Haberman is the business and political writer at the Portsmouth Herald. He can be reached at shaberman@seacoastonline.com
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