The CBC Favorite for Senate, CA Rep. Barbara Lee Is in Trouble, Jumps the Shark on $50 per Hour Min. Wage

After blowing her chance to be Governor Gavin Newsom's appointment to fill the late Dianne Feinstein Senate's seat, California Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) decided she needed to distinguish herself from her two fellow congressional candidates, Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Katie Porter (D-Irvine).

In California, according to the Living Wage Calculator published by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, one adult with two children would need to earn a minimum wage of more than $50 per hour to make ends meet.
— Barbara Lee (@BarbaraLeeForCA) October 10, 2023

California Rep. Barbara Lee thinks U.S. minimum-wage workers should earn a six-figure income, a proposal made Sunday evening during a Democratic Senate candidate forum as she sought to draw a contrast with her opponents in a tightly bunched field.
Ms. Lee, who’s running against fellow Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Katie Porter for the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said the federal minimum wage should be $50 per hour — or $104,000 per year.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, or roughly $15,000 per year. California’s minimum wage is one of the highest in the nation at $15.50 per hour, or about $32,200 annually, but will increase to $16 next year. The state is raising its hourly minimum wage to $20 next year for fast food workers, or $41,600 per year.

This is a ridiculously unsustainable idea. An 18-year-old clerk or burger flipper will start out at the same salary as the majority of internists. Not gonna happen, my friend, but chalk it up to each candidate trying to outdo each other with the Big Labor activists they were courting on Sunday night. All three candidates are effectively cut from the same progressive cloth and support the same talking points, so nothing to see there either. What this push for an increase in the federal minimum wage is about is getting ahead of a potential LaPhonza (Ayyee!) Butler Senate run.

Cheers and laughter erupted as Rep. Barbara Lee pitched a $50 per hour federal minimum wage during a labor-hosted U.S. Senate candidate forum Sunday in Los Angeles.
Fellow Democrats and primary opponents, Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter supported half that, but still far more than the current $7.25 an hour, with Schiff advocating for $25, and Porter a $20 federal rate and a $25 in California, indexed to inflation.
The three were trying to woo 350 delegates of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, who will vote by Tuesday on whether, or who, to endorse in the March 5 primary.
But the person of the moment in California politics wasn’t in the room: Brand-new U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, who took office last week after Gov. Gavin Newsom tapped her to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Butler won’t say yet if she will vie for a full six-year term next year, or in the simultaneous special election for the final two months of Feinstein’s term.

In the meantime, Lee is doing her best to out-progressive her opponents and win the intersectionality game.

I've survived domestic violence.

I’ve been homeless.

I was a single mom.

And I’ve always stood on the right side of history—even when I was standing alone.

It’s time for an effective progressive to represent California in the US Senate. pic.twitter.com/RS07zDkZ5v
— Barbara Lee (@BarbaraLeeForCA) October 2, 2023

When asked Sunday if Butler should run, Lee, Porter and Schiff briefly congratulated the new senator. They said they looked forward to her tenure, but said that they were focused on winning the race and suggested they can do the job better.
But if Butler, a former labor leader, decides to run, she could have the inside track to securing a formidable ally in some of California’s historically powerful labor unions. And that could shift the dynamics in the already heated March primary, in which three big-name Democrats have already been campaigning for months.

An update to the Cal Matters piece states the National Union of Healthcare Workers has endorsed Rep. Katie Porter, but the gist of the article is that LaPhonza Butler will wind up being the de facto Labor candidate no matter what promises and moves Lee, Schiff, or Porter make. According to Cal Matters, SEIU and other labor organizations are holding off on endorsing anyone else, waiting to see what Butler plans to do. Even in a three-person race, Lee is polling well below both Schiff and Porter. Should LaPhonza Butler decide to run for the one-year term or even the six-year term for her Senate seat, Lee's campaign is effectively done.

Recent polls show a plurality of likely primary voters remain undecided, however they have Mr. Schiff and Ms. Porter both leading Ms. Lee by double digits.
A survey from the Berkeley Institute of Government Studies published last month had Mr. Schiff leading at 20%, Ms. Porter at 17%, Ms. Lee at 7% and 34% undecided.

With those lagging numbers, it is clear that there is no argument that Lee will be able to make on much of anything. Despite the overwhelming support of the Congressional Black Caucus and the intersectional arm of California politics, Lee has been forced to take a back seat to LaPhonza Butler's now-present incumbency. Even if Butler chooses not to run, Lee lacks the juice to move her ahead of the Congressional pack.