C4 Sunday Republican, July 9, 2006 Sunday Republican. Established September 8, 1824 i Larry A. McDermott Publisher and CEO David Starr Wayne E. Phaneuf Marie P. Grady President Executive Editor Managing Editor Stephen D.
Smith, Carolyn R. Robbins, Howard A. Dupuis Editorial Page Editors state's minimum wage in an effort to offset the effects of inflation. Such a provision is not necessary if lawmakers will review the minimum wage periodically. Critics of the guaranteed annual increase argued that there is no one alive who knows what the inflation rate will be a year from now, or two years from now not the chairman of the Federal Reserve, not the owners of businesses anywhere in the nation, including in Massachusetts.
If the minimum wage had been indexed to inflation, business owners would have been unable to predict their labor costs, even over a fairly short time period. If a business owner cannot forecast with some degree of accuracy how much it will cost to pay his employees, there could be real trouble brewing. While no one is likely to be overjoyed by the compromises that were reached on Beacon Hill, everyone should be able to find some good news in the minimum wage measure. 5 1 Every little bit helps in lieu of city taxes aystate Medical Center, medical center's bottom line is strong. lades employer, Springfield's for its decision deserves largest to private acco- give Its million million in in operating fiscal fiscal 2004 2005.
surplus to rose more from than $21 $26 the cash-strapped city an Mercy and the city's three private annual voluntary contribution of colleges may not be able to match $500,000 in lieu of taxes. Baystate's financial pledge. We enImplicit in the five-year agreement courage them, however, to consider between the hospital and the Spring- how much they can afford to contribfield Finance Control Board is a cor- ute. porate challenge to other tax-exempt In lieu of taxes contributions are institutions to consider making simi- not without precedent in the Bay lar payments to boost their home- State. Massachusetts General Hospitown's tax coffers.
tal, for example, provides a $1.9 milIt's a worthy challenge one we lion contribution to Boston, according hope local colleges and other tax- to reports. Boston also receives $2 exempt organizations will consider. million from Harvard University and The control board will also seek $3 million from Boston University anvoluntary contributions from other nually, according to figures gathered major nonprofit organizations in the by the control board. city particularly Mercy Medical The agreement between Baystate Center, American International Col- and the city stipulates that Springlege, Springfield College and Western field must use the money for its pubNew England College. lic health activities and initiatives.
We While we recognize that Mercy and think that's a fair deal. the city's private colleges provide Baystate's decision to help the city many programs, services and schol- regain its financial footing is in the arships to the city of Springfield, we hospital's best interest. The hospital's urge them to consider making a direct long-term viability depends on the financial contribution to the city in its cal health of Springfield. time of need. That's true for every nonprofit inBaystate's pledge of annual pay- stitution with a Springfield address.
ments, which will increase by 2.5 per- We hope others each according to cent each year of the five-year their means will emulate Baystate's agreement, comes at a time when the sense of corporate responsibility. Wage plan imperfect, but it is laudable still early 10,000 workers in sought to bump up the minimum to months get Springfield a and raise should to in receive expect six to the wage sky. by workers, an They but amount also they that killed didn't would a reach move matter for to another raise a year lat- provide automatic increases in the er. An estimated 9,700 employees in the state's third-largest city are paid the minimum wage of $6.75 per hour. That would increase to $7.50 on Jan.
1 if a compromise reached by state lawmakers holds, as is expected. A year later, the state's minimum wage would be raised to $8 per hour, the third-highest in the nation. But before those who earn the minimum wage start making plans about what to do with their new income, they would do well to consider the other side of the wage hike: Owners of some small businesses who rely on minimum wage workers may not be able to afford to pay the higher wages. Some of those businesses will close, while others will be forced to relocate to a state where the cost of doing business is not so high. When the dust has settled, there may well end up being fewer than 9,700 minimum wage jobs in Springfield.
That said, there is much in the compromise that is laudable. Lawmakers 1 and now he's looking at your banking CAN'T A GUY GET ANY PRIVACY SECRET INTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS 70 THE PRESS SYND. WASHINGTON POST and at now my looking Th he's Race for Minn. Senate seat turning into challenge for GOP INNEAPOLIS Rep. small Mark 49-year-old town Kennedy, accountant former a and businessman, is carrying the hopes of the national Republican Party in one of the few Senate races in the country where the GOP has a chance of gaining a seat.
The voluntary retirement of Sen. Mark Dayton, this year has opened the way for a newcomer, and Dayton's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has given its endorsem*nt to Amy Klobuchar, the two-term elected attorney of Hennepin County (Minneapolis). In one sense, Kennedy is on familiar ground. After beating the male Democratic incumbent in his first race in 2000, he faced women candidates in both his re-election bids. Despite their spending about $2 million each against him, he won with votes to spare.
Minnesota has become a two-party battleground, with Republicans holding the governorship and the other Senate seat. President Bush lost the state by less than 3 percent of the vote in each of his races. But now, as Gov. Tim Pawlenty put it in an interview, "the president continues to struggle here," with approval scores below 40 percent. When I asked Kennedy in an interview if he agreed with the opening words of his profile in the current edition of Congressional Quarterly, the authoritative source on Congress, describing him as "a dedicated conservative and loyal Bush supporter," he seemed surprised.
"I don't know if I'd use any of those words to describe me," he said. And he offered an alternative. "I'd say I'm a common-sense Minnesota conservative informed by the values we care about from a Midwest perspective." Kennedy said, "The attack on me is that I'm a lap dog of the president. It's saying that I don't think independently, that I don't have a set of core values that I was raised with and have DAVID been living by. To BRODER have an organization as reputable as CQ fall into that trap, I just don't But in an interview here, Klobuchar said, "He supports the president's position 97 percent of the time." CQ did score Kenne- dy as voting in agreement with Bush's wishes on 98 percent of the roll calls in 2003 and 97 percent in 2004, before dropping to 87 percent last year, as he began to prepare for the Senate race.
Kennedy points out that even as a freshman in 2001, he opposed the president by voting against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and against the creation of the No Child Left Behind education program. Klobuchar dismisses those as easy votes for any Minnesota politician responsive to local opinion. But Kennedy says he is genuinely bipartisan in approach and cites "at least 15" issues on which he has teamed with Democrats to work for passage, such as environmental and a program to make it easier for scientists to become teachers. Kennedy's struggle to prove his independence is typical for Republicans running in competitive races from New Jersey to Washington state, as Bush's ratings have sunk. And this race is clearly a challenge for the GOP.
Klobuchar's political base in this population center of the state has given her more media exposure in her six years than Kennedy has gained from his work on the Agriculture and Transportation Committees from his suburban-rural House seat in a similar period. 4 Klobuchar's record of criminal prosecutions and consumer advocacy was strong enough that she ran unopposed for re-election. The Klobuchar on wars 1941. terror ASHINGTON 2001. and ranks the Our 1861.
with war big the big ones have a 1: way of starting on the first year of a decade. Supreme Courts, which historically have been loath to intervene against presidential war powers in the midst of conflict, have tended to give the president until mid decade to do what he wishes to the Constitution in order to win the war. During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus trashing the Bill of Rights or ing necessary emergency executive power, depending on your point of view. But he got the whole troublesome business done by 1865 and the Supreme Court stayed away. During World War II, FDR interned Japanese-Americans.
He, too, was left unmolested by the court. But Roosevelt also got his war wrapped up by 1945. Had the current war on terror followed course and ended in 2005, the sensational just-decided Hamdan case concerning military tribunals for Guantanamo prisoners would have either been rendered moot or drawn a 5' Supreme Court blows Hamdan decision president: Time's up. We gave you the customary half- of emergency powers, but that's as far as we go. From now on, the emergency is over, at least judicially, and you're going to have to operate by peacetime rules.
Or as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the new Sandra Day O'Connor, put it, Guantanamo (and by extension, waron-terror) jurisprudence must henceforth be governed by "the customary operation of the Executive and Legislative Branches." This case may be "of extraordinary importance," but it is to be "resolved by ordinary rules." All rise: The Supreme Court has decreed a return to normality. A lovely yawn. But, of course, the war on terror is different. The enemy is shadowy, scattered and therefore more likely to survive and keep the war going for years. What the Supreme Court essentially did in Hamdan was to say to the 3 DAVID BRODER What the Supreme Court essentially did in Hamdan was to say to the president: Time's up.
judiciary just six months ago that when it comes to Guantanamo prisoners, the judiciary should bug off. The Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005 not only implicitly endorsed what the administration was doing with prisoners, it explicitly told the judiciary to leave the issue to Congress and the president to resolve, as they have historically. The court's wanton overriding of Congress and the president is another in a long string of breathtaking acts of judicial arrogance. But it is fixable. The Republican leadership of the Senate responded to the court's highhandedness by immediately embarking on writing legislation establishing military tribunals.
The unfixable part of the Hamdan ruling, however, is the court's reading Minnesota has become a two- party battleground, with Republicans holding the governorship and the other Senate seat. President Bush lost the state by less than 3 percent of the vote in each of his races. name is further enhanced by her father, a longtime favorite local sports columnist now retired but on the speaking circuit for his daughter. Klobuchar faces nominal opposition in a September primary from an underfinanced advocate of immediate pullout from Iraq. She says she opposed the war from the beginning but now supports the view taken by most Senate Democrats that a pullout should begin this year, but no deadline should be set for completing it.
Kennedy says that he believes Iraq is "important to winning the war on terror and my opponent wants to pull the troops out without regard to the commanders in the field and without achieving the milestones" marking the road to victory. They have similarly sharp differences on taxes and health care. But the biggest question, as both of them 'see it, is who can capture the "change vote." Kennedy says, "Clearly, there is a frustration with what is going on in Washington. The spending and the partisanship is a big part of it. But I have a track record to talk about.
I work in this institution the way Minnesotans would want." Klobuchar. says that won't wash. Her slogan is simple. "He's followed the Lone Star. I'll follow the North Star." decision CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER art idea, except that al-Qaida has other ideas.
The war does go on. One can sympathize with the court's desire for a Harding like restoration to normalcy. But the robed eminences are premature. And even if they weren't, they really didn't have to issue a ruling this bad. They declared illegal Bush's mili- 1: tary tribunals for the likes of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard.
First, because they were not established in accordance with congressional authority. And second, because they violated the Geneva Conventions. The first rationale is an odd but fixable misreading of congressional intent. The second is a grotesque and unfixable misreading of the Geneva Conventions. The court feels that the president slighted Congress by unilaterally establishing military commissions.
What is odd about this solicitousness for the powers of the legislature is that Congress, which is populated entirely by adults, had explicitly told the 3 of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions, which were designed to protect civilian populations and those combatants who respect them, were never intended to apply to unlawful combatants, terrorists of the al-Qaida kind. The court tortures the reading of Common Article 3 to confer upon Hamdan and by extension the man for whom he rode shotgun, bin Laden the kind of elaborate legal tions that one expects from "civilized. peoples." This infinitely elastic concept will allow courts to usurp from Congress and the president the authority to fashion the procedures for military tribunals an arrogation that mocks the court's previously expressed solicitousness for congressional authority. But no matter.
Logic has little place here. The court has decreed: There is no war- or we will pretend so and henceforth it shall be conducted by the court. God save the United States. (This honorable court can fend for itself.).
