Supporters of the ballot measure to raise Arkansas' minimum wage have raised close to $1.7 million in the past month to promote the initiative, despite having no organized opposition.
The ballot measure, known as Issue 5, seeks to increase the state's minimum wage from $6.25 an hour to $8.50 by January 2017.
According to pre-election finance reports filed with the Arkansas Ethics Commission this week, three groups filed papers of organization between Sept. 30 and Oct. 15 to fund the get-out-the-vote effort for the initiative. No groups have filed to oppose the measure.
The three groups -- Give Us a Raise, Give Arkansas a Raise and America Votes -- raised $1.65 million from unions and liberal political organizations in less than 30 days.
Despite having similar names, the groups are separate from Give Arkansas a Raise Now, the committee that spearheaded the signature campaign to qualify the measure for the ballot. All of the groups listed different chairmen, treasurers and for the most part different donors on their campaign finance reports.
Greg Hale was listed as the treasurer for the group Give Us a Raise, which had raised $200,000. Hale is also a partner in The Markham Group consulting firm, which has run the organized campaign in favor of the wage increase proposal.
Issue 5 supporters are working hard to increase voter turnout, Hale said in an email.
"We are running a targeted campaign to mobilize our minimum wage supporters to vote in this election. While we are encouraged by the large amount of bipartisan support for this effort, we are taking nothing for granted," he wrote. "We want to ensure that every likely supporter of the Arkansas minimum wage increase goes to the polls and casts a ballot to ensure 170,000 hard working Arkansans receive a much deserved raise. Our campaign efforts include direct mail, radio, targeted phone programs, and continued volunteer activities."
According to paperwork filed with the Ethics Commission, Give Us a Raise received $100,000 from the American Association for Justice PAC, and $25,000 each from the American Federation of Teachers, the United Federation of Commercial Workers International Union, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Government Employees. Give Us a Raise reported spending about $80,000 on advertising, leaving less than $120,000 in its coffers as of Oct. 25.
The separate group, Give Arkansas a Raise, raised $1.45 million -- $1.05 million of that from the National Education Association. The third group, Washington D.C.-based America Votes, gave the other $400,000.
Give Arkansas a Raise reported spending about $1.1 million as of Oct. 25, much of it on direct mail, radio, digital advertising, polling, field staff and telephone service for phone banking.
The separate group Give Arkansas a Raise Now also raised about $6,750 this month. The group spent that money plus a little more to hire an expert witness as part of its successful defense against a Supreme Court lawsuit that sought to block the measure.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that supporters had submitted enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Stephen Copley, chairman of Give Arkansas a Raise Now, said he's confident the measure will pass.
"We've had polls all along that were between 69 [percent] and 79 percent in support of the measure. We knew if we got it on the ballot and it stayed on the ballot, we knew we were in a good spot," Copley said.
"We've tried three previous times in legislative attempts to raise the minimum wage since the last increase, and we couldn't get it out of [legislative] committee. At $6.25 an hour -- that's $13,000 a year -- folks are out there working hard, trying to make their ends meet. We knew it was time to try to get a raise for people."
Copley said the Advocates for Arkansas Children and Families released a study earlier this summer that said 170,000 people would be directly or indirectly affected by an increase in the minimum wage, meaning they are paid the state minimum wage, live with someone who is paid minimum wage or receive support from someone who is paid minimum wage.
The measure would raise the minimum wage from $6.25 to $7.50 on Jan. 1, to $8 on Jan. 1, 2016 and to $8.50 an hour on Jan. 1, 2017.
The proposal didn't draw any organized opposition but did have a challenger. Jackson Stephens Jr., filed the lawsuit in the Supreme Court in late September arguing that the measure was inappropriately approved for the ballot because of about 8,000 signatures he claimed were either fraudulently notarized or were illegible. The lawsuit also argued that the petitioners turned in signatures after the constitutional deadline, which the secretary of state's office postponed because of the July 4 holiday.
Stephens is the son of Jack Stephens Sr., founder of Little Rock-based Stephens Inc.
He said Thursday that he would not spend any money to defeat the measure despite feeling that it would "hurt the people it was meant to help."
"The ruling that the Supreme Court made in this recent minimum wage case indicates that they're insulated from competition and the kind of oversight that political markets are supposed to provide," Stephens said. "When that happens, you get all kinds of weird things, like embracing of fraud and that destroys the public trust. That's what the Supreme Court did."
Stephens went on to say that the measure wouldn't work to decrease poverty, citing Arkansas Department of Workforce Services statistics about unemployment.
"This measure is supposed to help those at the low end of the socioeconomic scale. Black youth receive minimum wage more than any other group of employees," he said. "Right after the last minimum wage increase in Arkansas, 29 percent of black teenagers were unemployed. Today, it's 39 percent. It doesn't work. It hurts people."
Metro on 10/31/2014