Alaska: Minimum-wage and marijuana votes in 2014?
Alaska voters are likely to vote on a minimum-wage hike as well as marijuana legalization when the 49th state holds its primary election in August.
Alaskans for a Fair Minimum Wage on Friday presented 43,000 signatures to the state division on elections in Anchorage. The labor-backed group needs 30,000 valid voter signatures to win a place on the primary ballot.
The sponsors of a marijuana-legalization measure have already turned in what would appear to be more than enough signatures to qualify.
The Alaska proposal is modest by comparison to the $15-an-hour, minimum-wage campaign in Washington. It is less than the $11.50 minimum wage recently adopted in Washington, D.C., and the $10.10 proposed by President Obama.
The 49th state, with its high living expenses, currently has a minimum wage of only $7.75 an hour — compared to $9.32 in Washington.
If voters agree, it would rise to $8.75 an hour on Jan. 1, 2015, and go up again to $9.75 on Jan. 1, 2016.
After that, increases would be linked to the Anchorage Consumer Price Index, or to a level higher than the federal minimum wage.
"It ought to be worth someone's while to go out and get a job and have some hope of being able to provide for themselves and their family," Ed Flanagan, a leader of Alaskans for a Fair Minimum Wage, and a former state labor commissioner, told the Anchorage Daily News.
The federal minimum wage currently stands at only $7.25 an hour. Obama is expected to make income inequality a major theme of his State of the Union speech on Jan. 28. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called for an increase in his state-of-the-state speech earlier this week.
The minimum wage and marijuana measures may face a conservative electorate in late summer.
The main battle in August is a three-way Republican Senate primary contest for the right to face off against Democratic Sen. Mark Begich in November.