It may be a contentious election year with many close races as the Democratic Party tries to snatch up 
some red seats and Republicans try to hold on and/or turn a few of their own.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t still get along, right?
A bi-partisan group of electeds in three contested races got together last week to promote living wage legislation that would pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour instead of $8.10 an hour.
The press conference came on the heels of an announcement Friday by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity that the state’s minimum wage would go from $8.05 per hour to $8.10 per hour. Elected officials around the state are saying that this token nickel raise is simply not enough to keep up with the much more rapidly increasing cost of living.
But Ladra bets most of them are Democrats. In Miami we had two, count ’em, two Republicans.
Taking a break from their campaigns for low-wage workers this morning:
- Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who despite her attack ads calling him a drunk driver, is facing the most serious challenge to her since Annette Taddeo, the OG version (in her first bid for office in 2008) from Democrat Scott Fuhrman.
- State Senator Anitere Flores, who faces attacks of her own from the Florida Democratic Party as they support Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in a redrawn district that is pretty evenly split, or maybe favors Republicans by just a tad. But will they come out to vote?
- State Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who left the comfort of a guaranteed slide back to the House
so he could change chambers with a challenge to the ever popular Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla in what has become one of the roughest local campaigns this year (more on that later).
Wait a minute. Didn’t the SEIU endorse DLP? Well, Local 1991 did. They represent the nurses and staff at Jackson and also endorsed Flores, Ros-Lehtinen and Sen. Rene Garcia. The other two locals, 1199 and 32BJ endorsed J-Rod in District 37.
Read related story: Public employee labor union backs three GOP legislators
Ros-Lehtinen has long touted her ability to reach across the aisle and build consensus. She is known to be pro equal rights and she seems to have some sanity regarding climate change. She recently helped write a bipartisan letter to UNESCO about Jerusalem and introduced bipartisan a bills to restore rights of Holocaust survivors. And she’s not voting for Donald Trump.
Still, Ladra is pretty sure it was uncomfortable for her and Flores to be standing with J-Rod while he’s attacking their friend, the Flagship DLP, on the airwaves on a year when he could very well lose his seat — even if they were on opposite sides of the podium.
Republicans and Democrats get together for living wage added by Ladra on
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