bobby scott
May 13, 2022 -
A number of states, including several in the South, are bucking the federal policy that allows companies to pay workers with certain disabilities less than the basic minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The Biden administration recently took an initial step to address that pay disparity for tens of thousands of disabled workers nationwide, while a bill to end the practice is stalled in Congress.
February 22, 2021 -
The eight-year-old Fight for $15 movement is as close as it's ever been to winning the minimum wage law it's seeking, but barriers remain — including opposition from two Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Here's who would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $15, and a look at the strong public support for the move.
July 19, 2019 -
This week the Democratic-controlled U.S. House passed the Raise the Wage Act to gradually increase the hourly minimum wage to $15. The proposal now awaits action in the Republican-controlled Senate, where the bill sits in a committee chaired by Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, who thinks there should be no minimum wage laws at all.
July 12, 2017 -
A perennial bill to create a national single-payer public health insurance program has record support in this Congress. Though none of the cosponsors are Republicans, they include a growing number of conservative Southern Democrats, signaling a shift in health care politics.
July 29, 2016 -
This week 69 state lawmakers from the Carolinas and Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter asking the Obama administration to block seismic testing permits for oil and gas deposits off the East Coast. They joined hundreds of other local communities, elected officials, business groups and scientists opposed to offshore exploration and drilling.
December 10, 2015 -
An effort led by Republican Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Democrat Bobby Scott of Virginia calls for a new environmental review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that takes into account the full extent of the impacts of oil and gas exploration, both ecological and economic.
August 30, 2013 -
After a decade of efforts to end prison rape, formal audits of prisons and jails are set to take place. But the first round will be conducted by the Virginia-based American Correctional Association -- the very organization that's been criticized for failing to address the problem.