A Message From Robert Rodriguez

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Rodriguez Attacks McKeon for Playing Politics With People’s Lives

While McKeon Grins on House Floor, American

Workers of the 25th District are Duped by Their Own Congressman.

Palmdale, CA – At nearly midnight on Congress’s last day in session this weekend, Howard “Buck” McKeon sponsored a bill to fool the American public. After repeatedly stating his opposition to increasing the minimum wage, McKeon, who is Chairman of the House committee that oversees such legislation, pushed a wage increase through the House that Democrats have sought for nearly a decade.

Why McKeon’s sudden sympathy for the American worker? Because McKeon, like everyone on Capitol Hill, knows that the last-minute wage increase stands almost no chance of becoming law in the Senate because McKeon attached the increase to a batch of tax cuts that excludes nearly every American worker. It is common knowledge that the Republican House only passed the minimum wage measure so they could pretend they did something for the American worker before they face the voters this November.


“When I was growing up, my parents taught me to take pride in America as a land of opportunity. As gas prices and education costs rise, it is wrong for this Congress to play politics with people’s lives,” said Robert Rodriguez.


Rather than proudly proclaiming that he is suddenly on the side of the American worker, McKeon introduced the wage-increase bill while most Americans were asleep late Friday night. His office did not even post a press release stating that McKeon had pushed through a wage increase – the first in almost a decade.


“I don’t know if McKeon has ever had to live pay check to pay check, but many of the people of the 25h district do. It may just be politics to McKeon, but it is people’s lives he is playing with and it is nothing for him to be smiling about,” said Rodriguez.

McKeon and the Republicans had ample opportunity to push through a minimum wage increase that was free of exclusive tax breaks, but they chose to reject alternative legislation that would have stood a much stronger chance of passing the Senate.

While McKeon has opposed a minimum wage increase throughout his career, he has voted to increase his own pay every year for the past seven years. He has also taken $1.7 million in special interest corporate PAC money since becoming a Congressman from groups that traditionally oppose a minimum wage increase.

“This ploy to pretend to fight for the average American is not the first time McKeon has shown that he uses his position in Congress to serve himself. Just as the truth eventually caught up to Tom Delay and Duke Cunningham, McKeon will soon learn that people are not as oblivious to his attempts to fool them as he thinks,” said Rodriguez.

This latest act of self-dealing by McKeon is part of larger trend of McKeon placing himself ahead of his constituents. McKeon’s car lease is the second most expensive in all of Congress; at $1,200 per month in taxpayer dollars, it is more expensive than many of his constituents’ monthly rent or home mortgage payments. McKeon’s Office also received some of the most expensive lobbyist-paid vacations in all of Congress – a $28,000 trip to Australia and a $17,000 trip to Turkey to help secure foreign government contracts for General Atomics.