Executives for Outback Steakhouses chain hosted a Florida fund-raiser for GOP Sen. Rick Santorum just days after the Pennsylvanian pushed in the Senate for
the donor's pet issue: Blocking higher minimum pay for restaurant workers.
Outback's political action committee gave $5,000 to Santorum's campaign in January and then, according to
several reports, company executives threw a March 30 fund-raising luncheon in Tampa for the senator.
In between the initial PAC donation and the Tampa event, where Outback's PAC gave another $3,000 to Santorum's
campaign, the senator - who faces a tough re-election battle next year - introduced a sweeping amendment to overhaul federal
minimum-wage and overtime law.
Although the Santorum amendment, which was voted down, would have raised the federal minimum wage by $1
to $6.15 an hour, it also contained a little-noticed provision sought by the restaurant industry, and particularly the 70,000-employee
Outback chain.
The provision would have barred states and localities from passing laws to raise the minimum base pay for
tipped restaurant workers, who currently can be paid as little as $2.13 an hour.
Santorum's chief campaign adviser, John Brabender said the important aspect of the amendment was that the
senator wanted to increase the minimum wage, but "he wants to make sure things are done the right way, and make sure that
small businesses aren't socked by a minimum wage increase"...
The flap involving donations from Outback - the Tampa-based company with catchy TV ads for its Australian-themed
flagship restaurants - is the latest to echo from his trip to Florida in late March.
Initially, Santorum had planned to hold a town meeting in Tampa with two other senators on a proposal to
overhaul Social Security - but that was before the national uproar over the Tampa-area Terri Schiavo right-to-die case.
Santorum canceled the hearing - "out of respect," he told a Tampa paper - and instead turned up at Schiavo's
hospice, the only member of Congress to visit the scene, where he met with her parents.
Daily News columnist John Baer later reported that the Tampa stop was part of a fund-raising trip that netted,
according to campaign officials, some $250,000 at four stops, including the Outback luncheon. It's not clear how much the
luncheon raised, although Political Money Line reported $6,000 in Tampa-area donations were reported on March 31.
