On B.013, I stood against the bill because as a former resident of D.C., I can tell you that no politician can afford to live in the district, maintain a family, and still win reelection with the proposed salary. The only people who could do so would be the wealthy.
We're in agreement on this. Pay caps for elected officials, I have no problem with, but this amount isn't doable.
B.014 seeks to protect paternity leave for Parents, thus ensuring strong and healthy families a goal we all share. In a second reading I believe that we could find common ground if the paid leave was a percentage of the normal pay instead of in full and if the time for leave was decreased. In Ireland the salary is 80%, and is capped, while the time period is for 6 months. Implementation of this new system will not be easy and should not be drastic, but instead measured and responsible.
We'll first need to establish that there exists paid parental leave for US workers and that it's not up to the whim of an individual employer to offer it. As it stands, there is no guarantee. I would like to see the US reach a paid parental leave policy that is in line with the average of OECD nations with respect to the length of leave, pay percentage during the period, and accessibility by either parent.
J.002 raises an interesting question, is penal labor slavery? Honestly, yes it is definitionally slavery. But just as murder has an exception granted for self defense, so too does the Constitution allow for penal labor.
The incarcerated person poses no direct threat to the "death" of any government. Justifiable homicide, the lawful killing of another in defense of self, doesn't stand as justification for execution.
Penal labor supports the finances of public prisons, thus saving money for the taxpayer, while sometimes performing rehabilitative processes.
Penal labor supports the finances of private enterprise in this country. The US is a member of the International Labor Organization but not a signatory to the ILO Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour, 1930 (No.29). Why? Because the one of the Convention exceptions to the prohibition on forced labor states,
any work or service exacted from any person as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law, provided that the said work or service is carried out under the supervision and control of a public authority and that the said person is not hired to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or associations;
The US has a long a shameful history of convict leasing programs prior and subsequent to the adoption of the 1930 Convention. The modern equivalent of those leasing programs are the use of penal labor in private enterprises, on prison grounds, that prisoners must work in under threat of 23-hr/day confinement and less than adequate nutrition if they refuse.
Forced labor does not function a rehabilitative.
I would leave this issue to the states to decide whether or not penal slavery is too abhorrent to tolerate while other states can use it to support their weak budgets.
There are better ways to support a weak budget than this.