Prince William County’s new Democratic delegates-elect want to see the area’s minimum wage go up and its unions thrive, a message that helped the party make huge gains in Richmond this fall but could rub the county’s business community the wrong way.
The Prince William Chamber of Commerce welcomed several recently elected state lawmakers to a breakfast meeting in Woodbridge on Monday, and they managed to get plenty of heads nodding by pledging to secure more funding for the area’s public schools and unclog crowded roadways in the new legislative session. But things grew a bit more tense as they laid out the details of their pro-worker policies, many of which were quite the contrast from those championed by the Republican incumbents they will replace.
“It’s not going to be a popular thing to say in this room, but wages have got to go up,” said Del.-elect Lee Carter, D-50th District, who knocked off Jackson Miller on Nov. 7. “The single best thing for any business is for people to have more money in their pockets.”
