{"id":536,"date":"2013-08-15T11:45:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T15:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=536"},"modified":"2013-08-15T11:45:56","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T15:45:56","slug":"citizens-to-capito-ketchup-with-1968","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=536","title":{"rendered":"Capito Heinz Ketchup Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) has refused to answer a seven week old petition from 400 of her constituents <\/a>to hold a public meeting to discuss raising the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

So citizens in her West Virginia district today launched a contest to get her to respond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCapito has ignored phone calls, e-mails, and articles in the Charleston Gazette<\/a> and Martinsburg Journal<\/a>,\u201d said Russell Mokhiber of Berkeley Springs who helped organize the petition drive. \u201cSo, we\u2019re offering a free bottle of Heinz ketchup to anyone who can get Capito to respond to the petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The customized Heinz ketchup bottle<\/a> has a label that reads: \u201cCapito: Ketchup With 1968! Raise the Minimum Wage to $10.50!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Capito responds saying she \u2018appreciates\u2019 your letter but doesn\u2019t address the request for a public meeting, that doesn\u2019t count,\u201d Mokhiber said. \u201c\u201dIn a letter to us dated July 15<\/a>, Capito wrote that that she \u2018appreciates the opportunity to learn your views on this issue,\u2019 but she he never addressed the request for a public meeting during the August recess to discuss raising the minimum wage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t say yes, she didn\u2019t say no, she just ignored the request for a meeting,\u201d Mokhiber said.<\/p>\n

The petition pointed out that adjusted for inflation since 1968, the federal minimum wage, now stagnant at $7.25 per hour, would be $10.67 per hour.<\/p>\n

“Neither President Obama’s nor Congressman George Miller’s nor Senator Harkin’s minimum wage proposals come close to catching up with 1968 by 2016,” the petitioners wrote. “Congressman Alan Grayson’s bill H.R. 1346 requires $10.50 per hour, 60 days after passage.”<\/p>\n

The petition called on Capito “to meet with us at a town meeting, during the August recess, at a convenient public space to discuss the legislative necessity of a $10.50 federal minimum wage for the working poor of our country who produce, serve and care for us each day.”<\/p>\n

Last month, Congressman Grayson (D-Florida) held a town hall meeting in Orlando<\/a> in response to citizens in his district and Ralph Nader\u2019s Time for a Raise campaign.<\/a><\/p>\n

In her July 15 letter, \u00a0Capito said she voted for the raise in 2007 to the current $7.25 an hour — but she ignored the call for a meeting.<\/p>\n

Follow-up phone calls and e-mails to her office were ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the seven weeks she has ignored our petition, Capito has met with the West Virginia Forestry Association<\/a>,\u201d Mokhiber said. \u201cShe appeared before the International Trade Commission <\/a>on behalf of a major West Virginia corporation to argue that anti-dumping regulations ought to be renewed. But she won’t even answer a request for a meeting with 400 of her constituents to discuss raising the minimum wage?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mokhiber said there can be up to nine Capito Heinz Ketchup bottle winners.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) has refused to answer a seven week old petition from 400 of her constituents to hold a public meeting to discuss raising the minimum wage. So citizens in her West Virginia district today launched … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}