Primary Election: Tuesday, May 13, 2008

General Election: Tuesday, November 4, 2008

ISSUES

RAISING THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE.

One of Thornton Cooper’s top priorities is to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $9.60 per hour by 2011.

The federal minimum wage law is one of the most important parts of the American “safety net”. The first version of the legislation was enacted in 1938, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Democrats are usually much more supportive of increases in the minimum wage, at the federal and state levels, than Republicans are. Raising the federal minimum wage is an important tool for lifting people out of poverty. This is especially true in West Virginia, which has a relatively high percentage of lower-income workers. During the past seven decades, the federal minimum wage has been raised repeatedly, most recently by the Democrat-led Congress last year. Under the 2007 legislation, the federal minimum wage, which had stagnated at $5.15 per hour under the Republican-led Congress, rose to $5.85 per hour on July 24, 2007, and will rise to $6.55 per hour on July 24, 2008, and to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. But are those increases enough? Have they kept pace with inflation?

Thornton worked in an automotive parts warehouse in Charleston during the summers of 1969 and 1970 at the federal minimum wage then in effect: $1.60 per hour. For a 40-hour workweek, he grossed $64.00. He thinks that the 2007 legislation is woefully inadequate. In 2008, what amount of money would purchase the goods and services that $1.60 purchased in 1969? According to a Consumer Price Index calculator website, http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/research/data/us/calc, maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, if a person purchased goods or services for $1.60 in 1969, then the same goods or services would cost $9.40 in 2008. A person who earns $7.25 per hour will gross only $290.00 in a 40-hour workweek.

However, a person who earns $9.40 per hour will gross $376.00 in a 40-hour workweek. To gross $376.00, a person working 40 hours per week at $5.85 per hour would have to work 64.3 hours (or 1.61 workweeks). To gross $376.00, a person working 40 hours per week at $7.25 per hour would have to work 51.9 hours (or 1.30 workweeks). If elected to Congress, Thornton Cooper will sponsor legislation in 2009 to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $9.60 per hour by 2011 and to index that minimum wage, as so increased, for inflation.

Another of Thornton Cooper’s top priorities is to provide universal health care. In 2008, tens of millions of Americans do not have any health insurance or do not have adequate health insurance. In addition, millions of Americans who do have employer-provided health insurance are afraid to change jobs because their prospective employers do not provide health insurance.

He believes that, in the world’s wealthiest nation, this situation is unacceptable. If elected to Congress, he will support legislation that would establish a system of universal health care and insurance portability. Several former or current Democratic candidates for President have offered plans for expanding health care in the United States. Of those plans, Thornton Cooper believes that the plan submitted by John Edwards is probably the best one that has a chance of being approved by Congress in 2009.

Thornton Cooper’s top foreign-policy priority is to bring our troops home from Iraq. He believes that the Congressional authorization of the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the United States’ biggest foreign-policy blunder since August 1964, when Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. According to some news accounts, the United States Congress has already authorized more than half a trillion dollars for operations in Iraq. The total estimated costs of the Iraq operations might exceed two trillion dollars. Half a trillion dollars ($500,000,000,000.00) is almost $1,700.00 for every man, woman, and child in the United States.

While Thornton supports withdrawing our combat troops from Iraq, he does not want to want the troop withdrawal to be conducted in a fashion that would create a power vacuum similar to that which enabled the Khmer Rouge to initiate their campaign of genocide in Cambodia in 1975. Furthermore, before our troops leave, we must first withdraw many thousands of American civilians. Moreover, the United States has a moral obligation to facilitate the safe emigration of Iraqi citizens who have assisted our troops during the period of occupation. Of course, we must continue to protect our embassy.

If elected to Congress, Thornton Cooper will support bringing our troops home from Iraq as soon as possible without a bloodbath.

Thornton Cooper also wants to protect the constitutional right to trial by jury. This right is under attack by legislators at both the federal and state levels.

The Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

Likewise, Section 13 of Article III of the West Virginia Constitution states: “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars exclusive of interest and costs, the right of trial by jury, if required by either party, shall be preserved; and in such suit in a court of limited jurisdiction a jury shall consist of six persons. No fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any case other than according to the rule of court or law.”

If elected to Congress, Thornton Cooper will fight to protect the right to a jury trial that is secured by each of these constitutional provisions. He will oppose legislation that would weaken the power of West Virginians to sue those who injure or damage them.