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Do You Really Know the Left-Wing Past of Obama’s Labor Secretary Hilda Solis?

Dec. 10, 2012 11:04am Charles C. Johnson

Radical Past of Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis listens as a professor explains some of the processes taught at the Wacker Institute during a tour of the facility Wednesday Oct. 3, 2012 in Chattanooga. Credit: AP

This is a contribution by freelance writer Charles C. Johnson.

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While you may know Hilda Solis as the current U.S. Labor Secretary, what you might not know is that she was once a left-wing politician with the backing of organized labor and radical causes. Research into the student newspaper of East Los Angeles College, one of the colleges of her former Los Angeles congressional district, reveal as much.

Solis’s activism, in fact, wasn’t always backed by the keenest of social science and often reflected a far left viewpoint. Take these few examples:

August 25^th, 1999, she participated in an “environmental justice” lecture.

In October 1987 she participated in a Compton Community College conference entitled “Women Moving Progressively Into the 21^st Century” alongside accused cop killer accomplice and Communist Angela Davis.

Her most strident activism came on behalf of affirmative action and increases in the minimum wage law. On October 9, 1996, Solis, then California’s first Latina state senator, equated support for the minimum wage law to support for civil rights at a pro-racial preferences rally, according to accounts in the Campus News, the student newspaper of East Los Angeles College.

At that rally, Solis linked opposition to efforts to undo racial preferences to a minimum wage ballot initiative. “Solis asked people to support Proposition 210, the minimum wage bill. It’s not that different [from opposing Proposition 209, the anti-racial preferences ballot initiative], because most of the people who get minimum wage, are minorities,” wrote Laurie Epinosa for the student newspaper on October 9, 1996.

Proposition 210 was sponsored by the Living Wage Coalition, which was underwritten by the textile workers’ union—UNITE. Solis served both as the chair of the advisory committee to the Living Wage Coalition and as chair of the California Senate Industrial Relations Committee.

Unfortunately for Solis, however, “living wage” ideology denies basic economics. Its proponents want to mandate an increase in the minimum wage artificially to meet an individual’s “basic needs,” which in practice winds up being whatever the unions determine such “living wages” to be.

In fact, minimum wage increases usually lead to unemployment for those it is designed to help. Indeed, decades of economic research and empirical analysis confirm that boosting the minimum wage beyond what low-skilled workers are worth, wind up pricing more low-skilled workers out of a job. “I have often said that the most anti-negro law on the books of this land is the minimum wage rate,” noted Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

One of Solis’s first ever bills was to increase the minimum wage. SB 500, which was filed in 1995, sought to raise the state minimum wage of $4.25 per hour to not less than $5 per hour on June 1, 1996, and to not less than $5.75 per hour a year later. After her bill passed the Senate, Solis wasn’t satisfied. “We should be offering a living wage, not a minimum wage,” she told the San Jose Mercury News on July 25, 1995.

So insistent was Solis, that during a meeting of the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, she bitterly fought an amendment to her minimum wage bill that would include a 15% income tax cut for all Californians, as well as a provision to allow more flexible work schedules. The bill also provided protection for entry-level jobs from elimination by establishing a temporary “training wage” to help those who might be displaced by a minimum wage hike. Solis killed her own bill, decrying Republicans for being “deaf to the pleas of working families who deserve a living wage.”

Solis backed other anti-small business initiatives, as well, including an effort to expand workers’ comp benefits beyond the current cap of $490 a week. It was too much even for liberal governor Gray Davis who vetoed it.

Undaunted, Solis ran for congress and, with the help of her union allies, overwhelmingly defeated a pro-free trade, eighteen-year incumbent to win the Democrat primary. “I wouldn’t be here, were it not for my friends in the labor movement,” Solis declared in her victory speech before a labor-heavy crowd in El Monte.

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“Solis said we should thank God that we had people like Cesar Chavez, and Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy,” Espinoza wrote about Solis at the October 1996 rally, linking supporting for what she called civil rights to support for a minimum wage.

The thanks didn’t end there. “Solis graduated from Cal Poly and said if it wasn’t for Affirmative Action, she wouldn’t be where she is now,” Espinoza wrote.

Solis “spoke of the need for everyone to vote ‘No’ on Prop. 209. ‘Without affirmative action, the doors will be closed to minorities, which not only includes people of color, but women as well.’” In fact, the passage of Proposition 209 saw more blacks and Hispanics graduate in the larger California college system than under the previous pro-racial quotas regime, according to Heather MacDonald of City Journal.

Given her views on wages and affirmative action, and her ties to the unions, the country could be in for a few surprises in Obama next four years. We ought to be very leery of her economic judgment.

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Comments (69)

Carlinpa
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:20pm
This is typical liberal, demonic, feckless, ideology in practice. If the individual doesn’t have the skills to earn the wage, higher the wage. No one ever considers perhaps minorities need to focus on the education rather then procreation!
EVERY liberals policy is feckless and counter productive by design because they pursue perspective rather then principle.

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- decendentof56
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 4:55pm
  “she bitterly fought an amendment to her minimum wage bill that would include a 15% income tax cut for all Californians”…..
  Is anyone surprised? THAT would cut taxes for White middle-class Californians, too. We need higher wages for my minority constituents and leave the middle-class tax where it is. How are we going to redistribute the wealth to just minorities and narrow the earnings-gap if we also help them (middle-class Whites).
  
  And this Communist got re-elected!
  
  Report this comment
- loriann12
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 5:27pm
  Can you imagine how much your Whopper would cost if Burger King was forced to pay their employees $14 an hour?
  
  Report this comment
- Bill Rowland
  Posted on December 12, 2012 at 7:03am
  She was an associate of Angela Davis who was a friend of Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dorn who are buddies of Sweet old Barack. It gets curiouser and curiouser.
  
  Report this comment
Depat
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:10pm
Gee, I have just always been under the impression that any and all people in the Obama administration are either Communist, Anti-Americans, or Crooks. I have never been wrong yet.
It’s good always being right.

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phattmatt
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:07pm
Sounds like an everyday run of the mill democrat to me.

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Arshloch
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:35pm
No suprise. The requirement for a job with obumer, is passing the Joe Stalin government approval test.

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katzkiner
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:25pm
Van Jones, new head of DHS. How about a cabinet job for Rev. Wright and Louie Fiareykan. All Power to the People! They elected a communist, Excuse me, I’ve got to pound some sand.

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redfish52
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:14pm
Look people…when Russian Newspaper “Pravda” say’s we are a Communist Nation I think they know what Communism is….we are just to stupid to realize it….the “Grand Plan” is coming true. This train is on the downhill now with no breaks….only a crash will stop it.

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- G-WHIZ
  Posted on December 11, 2012 at 12:40pm
  C R A S H ! ! !…..and then KING-O’BaaahMaaaah will be there with the NEW WORLD ORDER….
  to “HELP” YOU!!
  
  Report this comment
dublinthewagons
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:13pm
B.O. gets all his cabinet members from the communist American hating dump ground.
Set back and wait for the revolution. They want one but will not turn out well for their type.

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bankerpapaw
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:59am
You cannot qualify for a job in the Obama administration unless you ARE a communist.

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- strawberry411a
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:13pm
  Shocking. Someone working in the US government that is a radical. Why even report it anymore. No one cares, the damage is done. Now we simply wait.
  
  Report this comment
- dublinthewagons
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:15pm
  Dumpster dwelling communist.
  
  Report this comment
Ghandi was a Republican
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:57am
Linking minimum wage to racism. Liberals never see the problem behind the problem. The problem lies in the lack of people that work, as role models for these kids who think a ‘minimum wage (STARTER/ENTRY)” job is the end game. In the real world,, there are other jobs to move into. Well, used to be before obamanomics.

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mauna
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:51am
The illegals came here to “work” and they are the ones who told the potential employer what they wanted in the way of a salary. They may get a somewhat lower wage, but they make up with that a million times over by drawing welfare, food stamps, free medical care and free schooling, plus any other “freebee” they can find. I am sick and tired of their whining about “not being treated fairly and equally”. Actually, the Americans are not treated fairly and equally. One example, Illegals get free medical care thru medicaid and never have to pay a penny back to medicaid. Americans on the other hand, upon their death, have to pay Medicaid back for the medical care and any payments that person may have received, even if it takes everything, (home, possessions, etc,) the American citizen woked for, and leaving their heirs penniless, to pay back Medicaid. The more illegals get, the more they want. What part of “Illegal” do they or our government not understand? The Illegals are milking the American citizen for everything they can get out of them and are still demanding more.

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- Ghandi was a Republican
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:01pm
  Illegals have thousands in their shoes at all times (in case they get picked up, they have it). Most of them go home for the 3 Months of Winter and starting before the holidays. that is how easy they come and go. They simply go to the “La immigre” and turn themselves in for a free trip home. Room, board and a bus/plane ride. That’s how it’s done and this charlatan Solis KNOWS IT!
  
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Geopatriot
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:45am
Nothing new to see here. It’s business as usual. I wonder if she paid her taxes?

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- Blackhawk1
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:28pm
  She is a liberal. Of course she didn’t pay her taxes!
  
  Report this comment
JP4JOY
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:37am
All the communists would be ecstatic if everyone made the same wage (except for the ruling class).

Socialism/Communism impoverishes all (except the ruling class)

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RWCook
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:32am
no surprise here…Angela Davis was one of O’s earliest visitors at the White House.

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raderby
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:28am
does the dept. of labor really need to exist?

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- FISH_BONE
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:44pm
  No
  
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doomytram
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:26am
Obamunism. It’s what’s for diner….the failed Obozo policies are akin to third world Communist Dictators.

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:20am
One more radical in the White House – some shocker huh?

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CaliforniaScreaming
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:18am
The blind leading the blind. Ol’ Barry knows nothing about economics so he hires someone who knows even less. Forward!

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EqualJustice
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:18am
I doubt ANYONE is actually surprised or that this would make any difference to liberals in this country. This is what they want and what they are getting. SOCIALISM and REDISTRIBUTION of wealth worldwide. The once great USA is being destroyed, one step at a time. My concern is not for me but for future generations. What a shame.

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Obama2Repubs0
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:15am
Obama WON. Get over the witch hunt.

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- Zipit
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:22am
  Why? We enjoy watching you idiots get your panties in a big wad when confronted with something as simple as the truth!
  
  Report this comment
- Rothbardian_in_the_Cleve
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:23am
  Riiigghhht. My bad. I forgot. Because 62M voted for the tyrant the 59M who did not should have ZERO voice. No matter what transgressions, craziness, hypocrisy, crimes, or usurpation of the constitution takes place because my tyrant lost to your tyrant I should sit in abject silence.
  
  When do you get your brown shirt?
  
  Report this comment
- raderby
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:23am
  so…. just talking about the leftist bent of the Obloomers bunch should be shut off, in your opinion? go f yourself, troll.
  
  visit a sewer and drink deep the milk of your mother.
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:28am
  OBAMA2REPUBS0, I remember how the Dems went batsh/t crazy when Reagan beat Carter, then again when Bush 43 beat AlGore. Never saw the Dems get over anything. The office of the presidency will bounce back and forth every so often as it always has. Think about it, the four terms that won by FDR followed by Harry Truman winning another term on top of his completing FDR’s final term. That was a total of twenty years with no Republican president. The Republicans did not give up then, and I sure as hell will not now. Your whining and sniveling will not stop me from practicing my freedom of speech, and my desire for knowledge. Do you plan to roll over and give up the next time a Republican takes the office? I wouldn’t expect you to, but with your attitude, I guess that I can’t tell. You are like water and just want to take the path of least resistance.
  
  Report this comment
- mercenary4freedom
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:34am
  OBAMA2, like those free goodies eh? No matter what the damage to the sovereign United States huh?
  
  Solis is another tool by the marxist community organizer to drive down wages and break americas back. FORWARD!
  
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- georgesgirl
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:00pm
  I believe the article is about someone other than your dear leader. This woman (and her kind) are well known here in the southwest. They will not rest until our borders are officially nullified. It started with La Raza and LULAC in the ’70′s and just taken off from there. Check the boards of your banks and financial institutions, you will be surprised how many La Raza’s there are on them.
  
  Report this comment
- integrican
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:16pm
  Repubs won the House of Representatives and with that, the purse strings of the government. Many were sent to Washington to STOP THE SPENDING. So, when they propose bills that do just that, will they have your support…..thought not,
  
  When the well runs dry, only the prepared will survive and your ilk will perish……good luck to ya!!! Those that will survive have gold, silver or marketable skills. Having your hand out and sucking the teet of our generosity is NOT a skill!!!
  
  Report this comment
- Obama2Repubs0
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:01pm
  Still breathing that stale air in the GOP bubbledome…huh? No wonder you all lost the election and will continue to lose on a national level. Continue with your useless witch hunts.
  
  Report this comment
- MDECKER
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:35pm
  I agree! Bottled water for all of them! Courtesy of Louis.
  
  Report this comment
- Blackhawk1
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 1:51pm
  Obama2Repubs0
  
  Obama WON. Get over the witch hunt.
  
  I said something similar to a liberal union guy here in Michigan except a little different. Gov. Rick Snyder is going to sign into law that Michigan is becoming a Right to Work State within the next couple of weeks. I told him to do just what the liberals are telling Republicans to do since the election. Snyder won so sit down and shut up. Unbelievably he didn’t take that to kindly. I guess it’s true. Liberals are like little kids. If things don’t go their way they fall on the ground and throw a tantrum.
  
  Report this comment
Rothbardian_in_the_Cleve
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:15am
Does it matter? They could run Raul Castro as labor secretary and the media wouldn’t say squat. The people won’t care either. So long as the goodies keep coming, “rich” people are in the crosshairs and American Idol/The Voice are on TV there isn’t ANYTHING that this government/administration could do that would even begin to ignite the ire of the majority.

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- UNALIEN
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:40am
  haha, so true,,, these Marxist are extorting the previous wealth that Capitalism created, until it is gone, nobody seems to care…
  
  since Dec 2007,, 21.1 million increase in foodstams/disability and 4.4 million fewer jobs (NFP),
  
  “Aggregating foodstamp, disability and nonfarm payrolls data shows that since the start of the Depression in December 2007, 21.8 million Americans have shifted more or less permanently to the entitlement line, even as the US still has to generate 4.4 million jobs just to break even.”
  
  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-09/foodstamps-soar-most-16-months-over-1-million-americans-enter-poverty-last-two-month
  
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- FISH_BONE
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:48pm
  I would actually prefer Raul Castro to 95% of the morons in the current administration.
  
  After second thought, I take that back…. make that 98%.
  
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kindling
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:14am
Each time the minumum wage goes up more illegals enter the work force because they will take jobs at much lower rates under the table and our kids suffer because there are no entery level jobs left.

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Cabo King
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:13am
Well who would have thought? LOL what did you expect from the **** mnky??

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Zipit
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:12am
Is there anyone who pays at least a little attention, who doesn’t know about this woman? And if so, are you surprised? Even a wee bit?

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:31am
  ZIPIT, Agreed, much if not all the info here was released back when she was considered for this position. Also, its not like was not in national news spotlight prior to her selection.
  
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- Zipit
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:39am
  Indeed, a little recycled!
  
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- integrican
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:23pm
  She is NOTHING, compared to Clinton’s assistant (Wiener’s wife) and her close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood!!!! (Sorry, I forgot her name, but am quite sure her middle name is…. phlegm)
  
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- red1
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 12:27pm
  I know who Solis is because she used to be my Congresswoman. Sorry about that.
  
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EdHampshire
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:11am
And why wouldn’t Obama promote his own radical left-wing fellow travellers to as many positions as possible!

It is about the only thing he is interested in.

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ares338
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:08am
Well Duh!!!…..she’s the pick of the tool in the Oval Orfice isn’t she?

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- charles116
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 11:11am
  I agree 100%.
  A left wing Dem – alert the media!
  
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- Fubared
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:03pm
  Chuck, can you really do much 100%? How can a left leaning “person” do much aside from stealing and slacking to 100%? It is nonsensical.
  
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- FISH_BONE
  Posted on December 10, 2012 at 2:54pm
  FUBARED: In case you haven’t noticed, Chuck a.k.a. Dora a.k.a. Voice of Treason is a mindless dolt. S/he never says anything productive or positive. His/her comments are 100% negative. It is indeed a sad and pathetic life worshipping at the altar of the Kenyan sock monkey.
  
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