The decision is here!

 

For full coverage, read my stories below or visit http://www.routes.ou.edu.

Oklahoma wins water battle with Texas

WASHINGTON — The Red River water rivalry ended June 13 with a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court.

“States do not easily cede their sovereign powers, including their control over waters within their own territories,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the opinion for the case.

The court found it difficult to imagine that the four states had “silently surrendered substantial control over the water within their borders when they agreed to the Compact.”

The decision prevents Texas from taking any water from a portion of the Red River in Oklahoma. Both states are facing serious drought conditions that are comparable to the major drought in the 1950s.

The court ruled that the Red River Compact, a 1980 agreement to apportion water equitably among Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, does not overrule Oklahoma state water laws.

The decision sets the stage for a decision in a case pending U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City between Oklahoma and the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations over rights to some of the same water that Texas wanted. The two Oklahoma tribal nations are fighting to block the state from diverting that water to Oklahoma City.

The Red River Compact, similar to other water agreements between states in other parts of the country, was written in order to prevent disputes among the four states. The arguments heard by the court in April were centered on whether the compact meant that each state had an entitlement or a cap to the water in the Red River.

The Texas-Oklahoma battle for the water rights was over a small portion of the Red River, including the Kiamichi River, in the southeastern portion of Oklahoma.

The court’s decision upholds a decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2011.

Texas, to no surprise, was displeased with the decision.

“Obviously, we are disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision. Securing additional water resources is essential to North Texas’ continued growth and prosperity and will remain one of our top priorities. The population in our service area is expected to double over the next fifty years so we will act quickly to develop new sources,” Jim Oliver, the general manager of the Tarrant Regional Water District, said in a statement on Thursday.

Oklahoma, which argued that if the water was meant for Texas, it would have been stated explicitly in the compact, was delighted with the court’s opinion.

“This decision recognizes that as four states sharing precious water, we all have access to the water in the basin but not permission to take from whatever part we choose. While the Dallas-Fort Worth area is rapidly growing and understandably in need of an expanded water supply, this need does not excuse water providers from taking on our side of the river,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) Thursday in a statement.

Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah submitted a joint brief in support of Oklahoma’s arguments. No state filed a brief in support of Texas.

The case is Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, and was argued in the Supreme Court on April 23.

My first week at CBS News

This is the last summer of my undergraduate career. That means it’s time for an adventure – a big one. I’ve been fortunate enough to complete two internships in Washington, D.C., and I’m thrilled to be here for the third time.

I don’t like to consider myself to be lucky. I work hard and I’m dedicated to my future – I’m blessed. In the past year, I’ve attended and covered the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, an inaugural ball, the State of the Union address, the Supreme Court case Tarrant Regional Water District v. Hermann, along with dozens of other stories. My broadcast work has been used on air in two stations in Oklahoma, and my written stories have been used in newspapers and online outlets across the country. Whew. Now that I’ve summarized my resume to you, let me tell you why. None of this would have been possible for me without God, my family, friends and mentors – and for that, I am eternally grateful.

I am so incredibly proud to be a student at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. Man, I love saying that. At school, I am constantly surrounded by people who lift me up and encourage me to work hard. My deans, professors and friends are my second family. In fact, I took a recent trip to Norman for the last week of the spring semester, and to see some of my friends graduate. Let me tell you, there was not one dull moment that week. I flew home and the only way I could describe my week was that “my heart was so full.”

This summer, I have several friends either working or interning in New York City. How awesome is it that I have friends willing to take on the Big Apple to fully embrace their careers? I also have friends sprinkled out all over the country doing internships – in Nashville, Chicago, Joplin, Dallas and Los Angeles. (Also, can’t forget – there are two other Gaylordies here in D.C. with me!) It just goes to show that the hard work and passion coming out of the Gaylord College produces real (and awesome!) results. I love it, and I’m really looking forward to August, when I can swap stories with all my friends and we can exchange what we learned this summer.

Monday

So, last Monday was my first day interning for CBS News. Monday being a holiday, it was a little slow. I was absolutely thrilled to be there. (It feels really cool to swipe my fob key in the morning and walk in to CBS News!!) I’m interning for a department called Newspath; we produce the videos and scripts for Washington news for affiliates across the country. I actually was able to do a lot on my first day. There were several Memorial Day events happening in D.C., so I told the video editor what parts of the video I wanted to have put together, and I wrote short scripts to go along with each. For those of you who are familiar with TV news, I’m making VOs and VO/SOTs! They get put on the server for CBS affiliates to use. I texted one of my friends who is a producer at a CBS station in Oklahoma, and sure enough, my work is up and ready to use!

Tuesday

The newsroom was a lot more full on Tuesday, so I was able to meet more of the CBS family. I am so excited to get to know everyone. Some of these people have been working here for decades. Tuesday was full of making more VOs and VO/SOTs, and getting to know everyone. After work, I decided to stick around a little longer and watch CBS Evening News. Even though it goes live from NYC, there are still producers in D.C., so I was able to sit in the control room and watch all the action. Scott Pelley was on assignment last week, so Norah O’Donnell (one of my favorite journalists!) anchored for him all week. For those of you who don’t know, she also anchors (with Charlie Rose and Gayle King) CBS This Morning. I thought to myself, “Wow, all week she will be doing a morning show and an evening show?” That is dedication. That is journalism. I didn’t chose this career path to have a boring, 9-to-5 job.

Wednesday

It was already the middle of the week, Wednesday. By now, I was getting the hang of making the VOs and VO/SOTs and writing scripts. All of the interns went to lunch together, which was really fun. When I returned, I got a call from a 60 Minutes producer who I met last summer, and he asked me to meet with him for a “special Oklahoma project.” Tell me when and where, and I will be there! We caught up for a few minutes and then he asked if I would help do some research this summer for 60 Minutes. As you can imagine, I answered, “Absolutely!” I’m really looking forward to this side project, and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how it’s going. After work (hard to believe I even call it that – I’m having too much fun!), I met up with my friend Kate, who is also a Gaylord Ambassador, and her roommates. She’s interning in D.C. this summer, and I’m sure we are going to make a lot of fun memories!!

Thursday

Part of the reason I decided to become a journalist is because every day is going to be different. Thursday was a good reminder to me that some days are going to be really slow. I put together two or three VOs, and the rest of the day I spent walking around the newsroom and to CBS This Morning and Face the Nation. When I got home I went to happy hour with my roommate (a GW medical student), and her friends from her med classes. I was the only non-med student in the group – and I learned where my appendix is!! We agreed that I would keep them up-to-date on current affairs as long as they let me know what to do if and when I ever get sick. We had a great time!

Friday

Friday we had a guest come to CBS to do an interview with the affiliate station in Dallas. The guest was a man from the Disaster Accountability Project, and he was going to be interviewed on the recent tornadoes in Moore – but more on that in another blog post to come soon. While I was waiting for our guest to arrive, who walks in the front door but Chip Reid? We talked briefly and then he said, “I really look forward to working with you this summer.” What a polite, humble man!

Of course I had to end my first week of work at Jazz in the Garden. Every Friday in the summer, hundreds of people gather in a park near the monuments and listen to free jazz music, sit on the grass and drink sangria or beer. It’s a great way to kick start the weekend! I was having fun with my new friends, but unfortunately, my heart was in Oklahoma Friday evening. But, like I said, more on Oklahoma to come in another post.

Saturday

I made one mistake on Saturday – I didn’t wear enough sunscreen. There’s a pool on the rooftop of my apartment building, and the high on Saturday was 90 degrees, so you can bet your last dollar I was soaking up the sun all day. Saturday evening I went to a barbeque with some of my previous Scripps intern friends who are interning again this summer in Washington. We had a blast reminiscing on old times from last semester and eating ribs, cheeseburgers and hot dogs.

I’m convinced this is going to be the best summer of my life so far!

Like I said earlier, this is the last summer of my undergraduate career – then it’s time for the real world. One of my major goals this summer is to figure out exactly what I want to do after I graduate. For the longest time, the plan has been to work as a reporter for a local station in a small market. I’ve watched several people who I look up to do this successfully, and I’m sure I would love it. But the thought of working for a network has also crossed my mind. I’m hoping this summer will give me some clarity on what to focus on during my senior year at OU! But until then, I’ll be here in Washington working hard and making the most out of my “last summer!”

High court hears Texas-Oklahoma Red River dispute

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court dived into the water dispute between Texas and Oklahoma Tuesday in an attempt to decide what 25 percent means and which state is telling the truth about how much water it has.

Four states–Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas–signed a compact to share water from the Red River in 1980. The Red River Compact divides the water among the four states, but questions remain about which state gets how much water.

The fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth area says it is short of water and Oklahoma has more than it needs. But Oklahoma says Texas is using more than its share and should not be able to claim water in Oklahoma.

At the center of the arguments Tuesday was whether the 25 percent share per state should be considered an entitlement or a cap. A second argument was whether an Oklahoma law, that bars other states from taking water from inside Oklahoma’s borders, even when other states haven’t reached their 25 percent share, should be allowed under the Red River Compact or not.

“In other compacts, when they really mean to give one state the right to another state’s water, the provision in the compact is much clearer, more definite.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.

“It’s kind of sketchy, isn’t it?” Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked about information missing from the Red River Compact.

“It doesn’t say what happens when Texas can’t get the 25 percent,” Breyer said. Charles Rothfeld represented Texas, arguing that Texas doesn’t have enough water within its boundaries and that, according to the Red River Compact, it has the right to go across the state line to get its full share.

“When you say Texas has the right, it sounds like you’re going to send in the National Guard or the Texas Rangers,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, provoking laughter in the courtroom.

Lisa Blatt, representing Oklahoma, said that the Red River Compact does not entitle each state to 25 percent of the water in the southeastern part of Oklahoma.

“The compact no way, no how, entitles the parties to equal 25 percent,” Blatt said. She explained an analogy to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“You and I can have equal rights to the family car and equal rights to the highway. This doesn’t tell us how many hours we can spend on the highway,” Blatt said.

She also said Texas incorrectly measured how much water it has. The two states have cited different numbers. Texas has claimed it has as little as 11 percent, and Oklahoma has claimed Texas may have up to 29 percent.

“If we lose this case,” Blatt said, “Texas is going to be in a pickle trying to prove they can’t get 25 percent.”

Part of the problem, for both the justices and the lawyers, is that nobody really knows how much water is in each state.

“The focus in your argument [is] on state sovereignty, but this is an interstate compact. And the whole point of interstate compacts is that we have to – each state has to give up a little here or a little there to solve a problem,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts said.

Neither state has an abundance of water – both are in a drought that is comparable to the 1950s, Mark Svoboda, a climatologist from the National Drought Mitigation Center, said in an interview earlier this month.

But the justices weren’t concerned about the drought. It came up just once, in a hypothetical situation Sotomayor brought up.

Ann O’Connell, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, argued on behalf of Texas. She said the Red River Compact overrules any state law that differs from what the compact allows.

“What we’re saying is that if there’s a state law that conflicts with the allocation or poses an obstacle to the allocation of water under the compact, then it’s pre-empted,” O’Connell said.

O’Connell suggested that the court send the case back to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for more evaluation.

Justice Elena Kagan seemed to think that might be a good idea.

“This brief that you submitted,” Justice Kagan said to O’Connell, “It gives you kind of a headache.”

The court is expected to rule on the case, Tarrant Regional Water District v. Hermann, before the end of June.

Drought-stricken Texas and Oklahoma battle for Red River water rights

This map shows the northern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth water district and Subbasin 5 of the Red River, the area in dispute in the Supreme Court Case. The Kiamichi River starts in Subbasin 1 and flows into Subbasin 5 near the Red River, which is the state line. Map courtesy of the Tarrant Regional Water District.

WASHINGTON – Two states facing serious drought conditions will fight over water rights to the Red River at the Supreme Court on April 23.

Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas agreed in 1978 to share and conserve water in the 1,361 mile-long river and signed a contract to prevent disputes. But the peaceful sharing came to an end when fast-growing Tarrant County, Texas – Fort Worth and Arlington – said Oklahoma was hogging water it will never need.

The Red River Compact among the four states was signed and approved by Congress in 1980. The compact divides the river into five reaches, or sections, and each reach has designated subbasins. The case will focus on a small portion of the Red River in southeastern Oklahoma – more specifically Subbasin 5. That mainly includes a Red River tributary, the Kiamichi River.

Part of the problem is that the Red River compact does not clearly say if one state can take water from another state.

Oklahoma and Texas took the case to the 10^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled for Oklahoma. Now, the Tarrant Regional Water District, which represents 11 counties in North Texas, is appealing that decision.

Both Oklahoma and Texas have been facing serious drought conditions for nearly three years. Mark Svoboda, a climatologist from the National Drought Mitigation Center, said this drought is comparable to the drought of the mid-1950s.

“Now you have more people, you have more industry, more agriculture, more demands — for essentially the same amount of water. There’s an increased vulnerability. Even if the climate were steady, which it’s not, our vulnerability has ramped up,” Svoboda said.

“Drought doesn’t care about geo-political boundaries,” Svoboda said.

Oklahoma’s argument

Oklahoma argues in its brief to the Supreme Court that Texas already has more than its fair share of the water in the state, but Texas says it doesn’t have enough.

“These miscalculations grossly understate Texas’s ‘share.’ When these errors are corrected, our calculations show that Texas’s share of ‘excess’ subbasin 5 water is at least 29 percent,” Oklahoma’s brief states.

The compact says that no state is entitled to more than 25 percent of the water. The question remains: Can Texas cross the state line to get the water?

“The Texas approach has kind of alternated back and forth. For most of the time it’s been, ‘Let’s try to make a deal with you,’ and that’s fair enough. And I think that’s the appropriate way to go. Now it’s, ‘We’re going to come and take it from you whether you want to make a deal with us or not because we think we have a legal right to do so,’” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said.

Louisiana and Arkansas have written a brief supporting Oklahoma. “While it may be unfortunate that Tarrant is facing increased water demands, these demands have no bearing on the meaning of the Compact, nor do they require the Court to re-write the compact,” their brief says.

Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah have submitted a joint brief in support of Oklahoma’s arguments.

“At the end of the day, though, nothing unites Oklahomans like Texas – and vice versa,” Cole said.

Texas’ argument

The Tarrant Regional Water District said North Texas needs more Red River water to keep up with the demands of its growing population, which is expected to rise to more than 9 million by 2030, from 5 million in 2000.

“This case will have a major impact on the future of the Metroplex, which has an urgent need to plan for and secure water for the future,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a statement.

Linda Christie, director of community and government relations at the water district, said what it wants is what the four states agreed to in the compact.

“It’s hard for us to understand Oklahoma’s argument, saying that we’re trying to take their water,” she said. All Texas wants, she said, is to enforce the compact and get 25 percent of the water.

Water district officials said that about 16 percent of the water in question is in Texas – meaning it would have to take water from Oklahoma to get to 25 percent.

Other Texas municipalities and organizations filed briefs to support the water district’s case, but no other state did.

Related cases

This isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with one state using water from another. In 1982, the Court heard Sporhase v. Nebraska. Joy Sporhase and Delmer Moss owned a farm that straddled the Nebraska-Colorado border. They used water from the Nebraska side of the farm to irrigate land on both sides of the boundary. The Court ruled that the Nebraska law prohibiting use on both sides of the border was invalid. The court said groundwater is considered commerce.

This case, however, is unlikely to set a precedent for Oklahoma and Texas, although it’s been cited in some of the briefs, because it dealt with ground water, not river water.

Oklahoma has more than one competitor for the water.

“This is not simply an Oklahoma, Texas issue – it’s a tribal issue. There’s already

controversy inside of Oklahoma and it involves the Chickasaws and the Choctaws,” Cole said.

The Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations are located in southeastern Oklahoma, and they want to ensure that they have enough water to meet their needs. They have also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

“The Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations are managing a growing economy – operating enterprises, creating jobs and building infrastructure – which benefits their homeland, the State and the region. That economy relies on the water resources of southeastern Oklahoma,” the brief states.

The nations support Oklahoma in this case, although they are working on their own water negotiations with the state.

Potential outcomes

If the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, Oklahoma will continue to have rights to the Red River, and North Texas will not get more water than it has now.

The court could also reverse the decision of the 10^th Circuit, giving Texas a right to more water.  If that happens, the Commerce Clause of the Constitution could come into play. The clause allows Congress to regulate interstate commerce. But there’s also something known as the “dormant” Commerce Clause, which prohibits states from enacting laws that place undo burdens on other states.

The court’s decision in this case could affect other water compacts in the United States, including the Great Lakes Basin Compact or the Colorado River Compact.

James Huffman, dean emeritus at the Lewis and Clark Law School, said water issues can sometimes take decades to resolve.

“These cases can just go on and on, and it’s partly because of the Supreme Court,” Huffman said. For example, he said, Arizona and California were battling over water rights to the Colorado River in the 1950s, and the decision in Arizona v. California was made 2000.

“I wouldn’t expect a quick resolution here,” Cole said. “I would be pretty surprised if that were the case.”

The court is expected to rule on the case, Tarrant Regional Water District v. Hermann, by the end of June.

Does the penny make ‘cents’ anymore?

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

WASHINGTON – The familiar words of Benjamin Franklin may not mean anything to Americans because the value of the penny simply isn’t what it used to be.

Canada recently stopped making its one-cent coin, as have Australia, Brazil and Finland.

That raises the question: Is it time for the United States to follow suit?

President Barack Obama was asked about it in his a Google+ hangout “fireside chat” Feb. 14.

“Any time we’re spending more money on something that people don’t actually use, that’s an example of something we should probably change,” Obama said.

This isn’t the first time the issue has come up. In 2001 and 2006, Jim Kolbe, then a Republican House member from Arizona, encouraged Congress to eliminate the penny.

He is confident that the penny will eventually become extinct.

“Americans will accept it once they understand what the cost of not accepting it is,” Kolbe said.

“People will probably save them and give them to grandkids. There’s already billions and billions in plastic jars everywhere. They won’t have any real value for at least a hundred years or more.”

Kolbe’s bill didn’t pass, but he said the chances are greater now.

“I don’t know that it’ll happen in this Congress or not, but I think the likelihood of it happening is greater than just a few years ago,” said Kolbe.

Another way to save money, Kolbe said, is to replace the dollar bill with a coin. The problem is that people aren’t ready to make that transition, he said.

The Treasury Department stopped making the unpopular presidential dollar coins for mass circulation in December 2011. It will mint enough for collectors. Still, the Federal Reserve Board reported amassing more than $1.4 billion in presidential dollar coins in storage as of May.

“Public acceptance of getting rid of the penny is higher than it is for the dollar, but the savings is higher for the dollar than it is for the penny,” Kolbe said.

Michael White, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint, said it costs 2 cents to make a penny, down from 2.4 cents in 2011. That’s because the Mint has cut back from three shifts of penny makers to two, he said. More than 6 billion pennies were made last year. The year before, nearly 5 billion were produced.

To determine the possible cost savings, multiply 5 billion by 2.4 (or 6 billion by 2 cents). That rough calculation finds that the government spent $120 million in 2011 and in 2012 to make pennies.

With issues such as the fiscal cliff, the sequester, gay marriage and other urgent business, the penny is not in the forefront of everyone’s mind on Capitol Hill.

“The penny is an example of something I need legislation for. Frankly, given all the big issues that we have to deal with day in and day out … we’re not able to get to it,” Obama said in his fireside chat.

There’s at least one person who wants to keep the penny around – Alan Popovsky, the owner of a restaurant in D.C. called Lincoln. Obama ate lunch there last summer with three campaign supporters who won a contest to meet him.

“I know they’re talking about eliminating the penny but, I don’t know – that seems so un-American to me,” Popovsky said. “It would tarnish – no pun intended – the legacy a little bit.”

Most of the floor at the popular restaurant a few blocks from the White House is paved in pennies – more than a million. (For the math challenged, that works out to $10,000 in coins glued to the floor.)

Popovsky said that he and designer Maggie O’Neill knew it would be expensive.

“The actual installation was more than it would be for a standard tile floor – three times as much,” he said.

Eliminating the penny would make the restaurant worth more, Popovsky said.

“I would like them to not get rid of the penny because we need them sometimes to repair the floor,” Popovsky joked.

The restaurant owner keeps a penny jar at home, something that Kolbe would never do.

“I try to get rid of them as fast as I can,” Kolbe said in a phone interview.

If the penny were eliminated, the country would likely model the change on Canada’s system. The coins remain in circulation, but the Canadian mint stopped making them last month.

For cash purchases, prices would be rounded to the nearest nickel. Debit card, credit card or check payments would be to the exact cent.

“When you go to the grocery store, if it’s $54.97 it will be rounded down to $54. 95. If it’s $54.98, it will be rounded up to $55,” Kolbe said.

There is one one-cent coin that’s worth quite a bit — a 1793 penny that sold for more than $1 million at an auction in Florida last year.

Lifelong Learner

As I’m nearing the end of my internship, I’m starting to evaluate what I’ve done over the past few months and what I can accomplish over the next three weeks. It’s hard to believe there’s only three weeks left; and it’s important I set goals for myself now, before my time slips away. Over the past three months, I’ve covered everything from major political events to small feature stories. I’ve been fortunate enough to write a few stories for news organizations in Oklahoma, which I miss dearly. One of my most exciting moments was discovering that a Scripps TV station in Tulsa used a package I put together (backpack journalist over here!) on their 10 p.m. newscast. After doing some research on myself today, I discovered that my work has been published not only in Oklahoma, but in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Kansas and Ohio.

But I’m not going to pretend that everything has been peachy keen here in Washington. I’ve had my fair share of rough days. Thankfully, I have wonderful friends here like Ed Kelley, who remind me that everything really will be okay.

I’ve realized that I have a lot to learn, and I’m going to fully embrace that realization. Lately I’ve been referring to one of my elementary school mottos, “Lifelong learners we will be.” So instead of letting myself feel dumb when I don’t know something, I’m going to accept that learning something new is a part of being a lifelong learner. Here’s to the next three weeks!

Democrats introduce bill to raise minimum wage

Amie Crawford, 56, says at a news conference Tuesday that she works for $8.75 an hour at a restaurant in Chicago. A former interior designer, she relocated to Chicago for family reasons and could not find a job in her field.

WASHINGTON – Aime Crawford said she did everything she thought she was supposed to do. She was debt-free and had savings to fall back on. More than a year ago, she relocated to Chicago for family reasons, left her job as an interior designer and started looking for a new full-time job. Now 56, she works for a restaurant called Protein Bar in Chicago making $8.75 an hour.

“I used to think that minimum wage jobs were for ‘other people,’ people who worked where I stopped to get doughnuts or burgers. They weren’t me. They had less education, fewer skills,” Crawford said at a press conference Tuesday. “They didn’t work as hard as I had, or try as hard. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., announced they were introducing a bill with people like Crawford in mind. Their bill would raise minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25.

In President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last month, he proposed that the minimum wage be raised to $9 by 2015.

“Every time we’ve raised minimum wage, employment goes up,” Harkin said. “The economy gets stronger every single time.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the committee’s senior Republican, said in a statement that the focus should be on helping workers get better jobs through good schools and training instead of raising the minimum wage.

“If we keep making it more expensive for employers to hire new workers, we’ll never create new jobs for the 12.3 million unemployed Americans,” he said.

Dan Danner, the president of the National Federation of Independent Business, opposes a higher minimum wage.

“Employment opportunities for minimum wage workers actually shrink when the base wage is increased,” Danner said in a statement after the State of the Union address.

The NFIB argued, “A higher minimum wage would force employers to stop expanding or to downsize.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released this statement on its website the last time the minimum wages was raised: “increases in the minimum wage fall disproportionately on small businesses who are the least able to absorb such a dramatic increase in their labor costs … any increase must be coupled with provisions that recognize the impact this will have on small businesses.”

Neither group responded to a request for an interview.

After considering inflation, minimum-wage workers earned more in 1968 at $1.60 an hour than they would today. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, a comparable wage for today would be $10.59 an hour.

The last time the minimum wage was raised was in 2007, in three yearly increments, to $5.85 that year and $7.25 in 2009.

2013 SOTU Address

Read my latest Storify post for details on the night.

 

Here’s a picture of me in the press gallery that was a part of the Washington Post’s photo gallery of the night. I was also visible in Wednesday’s print copy of the WaPo.

My first inaugural experience

My day started out with waking up at 4:30 a.m. and practically inhaling McDonald’s coffee while mentally preparing for the day. I was pumped and ready to take on the world. My first inauguration was before me. I really had no idea what to expect of the day, but I was prepared. I wore clothes with pockets so I could bring everything I might need – Kleenex in case I sneezed, a granola bar in case I had a minute to grab a bite and, of course, hand warmers.

All of the interns gathered in the lobby of our apartment building, ready to embrace the cold weather and report all day. We had arrived where we thought we were supposed to go for media check-in, but it seemed as if every security person had a different policy about who could go where. It was a bit of a struggle for me to get in, but I finally got past security. Next task: figure out where I’m supposed to be and start taking pictures.

Once I realized how close I was to the Capitol, I decided to stay there until someone said something about it. My inauguration ticket was for a different area, farther away from the Capitol. Since no one asked me to move, I was able to sit and enjoy the entire ceremony up close with an incredible view.

If I had to choose one word to describe witnessing this historic event, it would be “patriotic.” I think that, despite the problems our nation faces, we still live in the greatest country on Earth. The fact that we are able to have such a peaceful transfer of power among our differences is an incredible testament to our people. It meant so much to me not only to be at the inauguration but also to be surrounded by people who are different from me, yet at the same time, very similar.

I interviewed a woman after the ceremony who was so full of energy and excitement to be at the inauguration. She is a first-generation American and had never been to an inauguration ceremony before. It meant a lot to her that she was an American, and it made me think twice about how blessed I am to have been born here.

Another man I interviewed openly admitted that he was not a Democrat but was a big supporter of President Barack Obama. This was his fifth inauguration. That sparked my interest because he had been to both Democratic and Republican inaugurations in his past.

Next on my to-do list was to get back to the office and write my stories, then prepare for the Creative Coalition ball. It was my job to talk to celebrities and find out who they think will win the Super Bowl. What a task! I spoke to actors Robert Knepper, Richard Schiff, Evan Handler, Matt Bomer, Tim Daly, Omar Epps and others. After the celebrities walked the red carpet, I met Don Lemon from CNN and took a picture with him.

After the Creative Coalition ball, I went home and ate dinner at about 1 a.m. and thought to myself as I fell asleep, “Wow, I won’t get to do this again until I’m 26 years old.”