The scam run to get undistinguished rich kids into elite colleges is not unique -- it's the logical criminal outcome of the unjust system that labor leader Leo Gerard outlines here. In this Progressive Breakfast analysis we see that working people are hemmed in on many fronts by the economic advantages enjoyed by the wealthy that keep the rich -- and their children -- on top of the economic ladder. That system must be unwound.

Danielle Gaines of Maryland Matters recounts the rocky path toward passage of the $15 minimum wage in the Senate, as many try to put their regional or ideological stamp on the already tattered bill. The House, passing it last week, disgracefully went along with the business-sodden Economic Matters Committee’s cuts – no indexing for inflation, no tipped workers, no agricultural workers, pitfalls for young workers and a two-year delay in reaching the full $15. The Senate made the rubble bounce by exempting businesses with 15 or fewer employees. The WaPo seems to think even this badly damaged bill is a “major victory for liberal Democrats,” overlooking the victories of neoliberal Democrats in gutting the bill. But as Gaines’s play-by-play shows, many senators still had to get into the act…

Among the Maryland workers most injured by the gutted $15 minimum wage bill, tipped workers stand out. At $3.63 an hour plus tips, a level unchanged for decades and a legacy of Jim Crow racist oppression, workers in the food service industry remain most under the thumb of unscrupulous business interests, as Drew Koshgarian shows in a Maryland Matters commentary,

A FLURRY OF INFO -- tonight's March for Schools; Larry S pokes the restaurant bosses; latest on the Fight for $15 and other legislation in the State House sausage factory; Movement Politics training this weekend, and more -- all in the Weekly Memo, your one-stop guide for progressive activism in Maryland.

When you ask a fake question, you get a fake answer -- even in a statewide poll about the minimum wage, a matter of great urgency for 600,000 low-wage workers in Maryland. Bad polling poisoned by paid questions distorts the public view and is warping the work of the General Assembly on this important bill, as PM director Larry Stafford Jr. outlines here.

Activists are telling Senate committee members -- today voting on the $15 minimum wage bill -- to do better than the House and in fact to clean up the mess House members made of the badly needed measure that would give some support to 600,000 low-paid Maryland workers.

A flurry of hearings in the Assembly this week tries to beat a deadline for bills to cross from one chamber to another in order to pass. Several factors, including Del. Lisanti's vow to remain in the House despite her censure for using a racial slur among colleagues, could slow those bills down.

At a news conference Monday evening the coalition urging a "clean $15" minimum wage bill -- one that does not exclude tipped workers and other marginalized groups -- made their case forcefully and with testimony from affected workers. The Senate, they said, should repair the damage done by the House.

A top issue for Progressive Maryland, the Fight for $15 as a minimum wage statewide, has been passed by the House but with Economic Matters Committee amendments that make it narrower and less helpful to working people than the original bill. Progressives will fight to keep the Senate version “clean” and persuade House members that they should accept the better bill when it comes time to reconcile their version with the Senate bill.  Tonight, Monday, Mar. 4, we’ll be visiting the offices of House members with that message. after the news conference (see below).

Progressive Maryland members who have been mobilizing for a Lobby Night March 4 will shift our focus to a news conference that evening at 6 PM in the House Office Building (Room 142) to urge Del. Mary Anne Lisanti’s resignation and follow it with a mass distribution of information for House members as the Fight for $15 moves to the full Assembly.