Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1499: The attack on minimum wage and local control

  Minimum wage! Minimum wage! Minimum wage! I know minimum wage firsthand. I shared a little bit of my minimum wage experiences with my fellow senators this past week.

  I went to the podium in the well of the Alabama Senate to speak against a bill that would prohibit cities and counties from enacting ordinances to establish minimum wages. I shared how I worked for $3 a day in the 1950s when the minimum wage was 75 cents, and then $1 per hour because agriculture workers were excluded from minimum wage laws. Some worked for even less than $3.00 a day because cotton pickers were paid 2.5 to 3 cents per pound. When we picked Irish potatoes (white potatoes), we were paid 2.5 to 3 cents per half-bushel. If we did not pick more than 100 pounds of cotton or pick up more than 100 half-bushels per day of potatoes, we did not get close to even $3 per day. I chopped cotton for $3 per day. I broke corn for $3 per day. As you can see, I know wages way below minimum wage.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1435: The power of faith

  Senator Vivian Davis Figures, Alabama Senate Minority Leader, asked each of the eight Democratic senators to say whatever was on their hearts and minds. I did not congratulate anyone. I did not say I was glad to be re-elected. I did not say what I intended to do. I did not say what others should do. Because we are so few, just eight out of 35, I shared my version of the biblical story of Gideon. I want to share the same with you.

  Gideon was a great general. He had some 32,000 troops. God told him to go forth and fight the Midianites. Gideon’s response was that he was willing to fight but he did not have enough troops. The Midianites had far more, “a whole host of troops.” Instead, God directed Gideon to reduce his troops. He had too many troops to fight effectively.